The UK, Germany, France and other European countries are ready to send troops to guarantee the ceasefire in Russia's war against Ukraine, French Finance Minister Eric Lombard said in an interview with Bloomberg, adding that he expects the US to support European troops to maintain peace when Ukraine and Russia reach a ceasefire agreement, UNN reports.
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"The UK, Germany, France and other European countries are ready to send troops to guarantee a truce," he told Bloomberg Television in an interview in Cape Town, where he is attending a meeting of G20 financial leaders.
"If we want the ceasefire to be respected, we need the support of the United States," he said on Wednesday. "I believe the Americans have agreed to do that.
Earlier this week, Lombard and French President Emmanuel Macron traveled to Washington to discuss Ukraine and trade with their American counterparts, including President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
"We discussed all issues, trade, duties, non-customs barriers," he said. - "We agreed to continue the conversation, which is a step forward.
He added that he and Bessent had exchanged cell phone numbers and would meet again in April at the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington.
Lombard is participating in the gathering of financial executives from the world's leading economies, despite the fact that the United States and Argentina decided to skip the event after Trump publicly quarreled with his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa over domestic land laws, equality policies, and the war in the Gaza Strip.
French officials have said that Lombard intends to reaffirm his country's commitment to multilateralism and project European unity amid Trump's attacks on the world order governed by the global institutions that the United States helped create. The United States has already withdrawn from the World Health Organization, the Human Rights Council, and the Paris Climate Agreement.