European allies pledge to plug Ukraine weapons shortages; no consensus on ground troops

Feb. 27 (UPI) -- Ukraine's European allies have agreed to plug arms shortages by supplying medium- and long-range missiles and bombs and do not rule out providing ground forces, French President Emmanuel Macron said.

Speaking after a Ukraine conference in Paris on Monday attended by leaders and ministers from 20 nations, including Germany's chancellor Olaf Scholz, British foreign secretary David Cameron, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and a virtual address from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Macron reiterated the bloc's commitment.

"Shared conviction with our partners tonight: Russia cannot and must not win in Ukraine," Macron wrote in a post on X.

"It is on our continent that this war is taking place. What is at stake is our security as Europeans, it is our future. Alongside Ukraine, with our partners, we will be there resolutely, for as long as necessary and whatever that requires."

Ahead of the summit, Macron said they would be discussing "our support for Ukraine and our collective security," which he said required "a collective leap from all of us."

In a broadcast address afterward, Macron said the partners would supply Ukraine with "missiles and bombs of medium and long range to carry out deep strikes," but gave no timetable for when they might be delivered.

He also said that while no agreement had been reached on putting European troops on the ground in Ukraine, it should not be ruled out.

"We will do everything so that Russia cannot win this war."

Marcon insisted there was a clear consensus that Russia could attack other countries within a few years evidenced by its recent actions, including the killing of the opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

However, he was forced to resort to repeating France's own stated position of strategic ambiguity on committing ground or air forces after cracks in the coalition emerged with the prime ministers of the Czech Republic and Slovakia saying they would not send troops to fight in Ukraine under any circumstances.

Speaking to reporters in Kyiv, Zelensky said the conference urgently needed to redress a shortfall in promised ammunition deliveries, which he said was to blame for a recent shift in the power balance on the frontlines of the war in Russia's favor.

"Out of a million shells that the European Union promised us, it was not 50% but unfortunately 30% that were delivered."

Delegations were in attendance in Paris from Canada and the United States, where a bipartisan $95 billion national security supplemental spending bill, $60 billion of it to fund the resupply of Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, is stalled in Congress.

The U.S. Senate passed the package on Feb. 13 but it faces an uphill struggle from Republican representatives in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is refusing to bring it to the floor.