Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected Western proposals for a reassurance force in Ukraine the day after any ceasefire comes into place, following a Paris summit aimed at finalising plans for security guarantees.
French President Emmanuel Macron said 26 of Ukraine's allies had formally committed to deploying troops by land, sea or air to help provide security the moment fighting was brought to a halt. He did not detail any of the countries involved.
Putin sought to quash the allies' initiative, with a warning that any troops deployed to Ukraine would be legitimate targets, especially if they appeared now, even though there are no plans for an immediate deployment.
There seems little hope of a ceasefire for now, after last month's summit in Alaska between Putin and US President Donald Trump briefly raised hopes of a meeting with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and a potential peace deal. Putin said on Friday he was ready for contact with the Ukrainian leader but I do not see much point. Why? Because it is nearly impossible to reach agreement with the Ukrainian side on key issues.
His spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, praised Trump's very constructive efforts in finding a solution, but attacked the outrageous efforts of European countries to provoke continuation of the war.
Since the Alaska meeting, the Coalition of the Willing - led by the UK and France - has been working intensively on providing Kyiv with guarantees if an agreement is reached. These would involve strengthening Ukraine's military as well as providing a reassurance force to patrol any deal.
Macron stressed any troops would be deployed to prevent any new major aggression and not at the front line. The force does not have the will or the objective of waging war against Russia, he said.
Zelensky described the decisions taken at Thursday's Paris meeting as the first concrete step.
The US has not made the scale of its involvement clear. The French president said that would be finalised in the coming days. Trump recently indicated that US backing could probably come in the form of air support, and Zelensky said he had spoken to the US leader about maximum protection for Ukraine's skies.
Putin, who spent Wednesday with China's Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, maintains that his country's military is pushing forward on all fronts in Ukraine.
As well as making clear that no Western forces should be deployed to Ukraine, Moscow has insisted that it should be one of the countries acting as guarantors of Ukrainian security - an idea rejected by Kyiv and its allies.
Putin's spokesman told the BBC that any foreign forces, whether belonging to NATO or otherwise, would be a danger to Russia because we are an enemy of NATO.
NATO chief Mark Rutte said on Thursday that Russia had no veto on Western troops being deployed to Ukraine: Why are we interested in what Russia thinks about troops in Ukraine? It's a sovereign country. It's not for them to decide.
Few countries have openly promised to deploy troops on the ground in Ukraine in the event of a deal, and the US has already ruled out such a move. European diplomats have suggested that committing troops at this point would probably help Putin's narrative against the West.
However, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Western allies now had an unbreakable pledge to Ukraine, backed by the US, and had to press Russia to end the war, according to a Downing Street spokeswoman.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said following the meeting that the first priority was to secure a ceasefire at a summit involving Zelensky, and then provide strong security guarantees.
More than three-and-a-half years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin said this week there was a certain light at the end of the tunnel and that there are options for ensuring Ukraine's security in the event the conflict ends. But he appeared to cast doubt on Friday on the likelihood of any deal being reached, blaming Ukraine's requirement to have any change to its territories confirmed by a referendum and lifting of martial law.
Russia has illegally annexed five Ukrainian territories, but only has full control of one of them, Crimea.
