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French President Emmanuel Macron has said that there is “no doubt” the United States will support security efforts in Ukraine after 26 European countries pledged to send troops to the war-battered country after fighting ends.

Macron spoke after a meeting of the so-called coalition of the willing in Paris on Thursday that was followed by a video call to United States President Donald Trump aiming to get a clearer sense of Washington’s commitment to Ukrainian security, viewed as essential to any peacekeeping efforts.

The French president said that US support for the “reassurance force” would be finalised “in the coming days” and that Washington would collaborate with European countries in imposing new sanctions if Russia were to continue to refuse a deal to end the three-and-a-half-year war.

The summit in Paris included European leaders, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in attendance, and was part of a push to show Europe’s ability to act independently after mixed signals from Washington since Trump entered office in January.

Reporting from Paris, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler said that Macron had indicated the call with Trump was “positive”, with further news to come on what the US might have to offer in terms of security guarantees.

“Until now, that has been very vague indeed,” she said, noting that Trump had previously said that US troops would not be sent to Ukraine.

Experts say that any European operation would hinge on the US providing intelligence support and airpower in countries outside Ukraine.

‘Concrete step’

The guarantees by the 26 countries in the coalition of the willing – largely European, with the inclusion of Canada, Australia and Japan – are expected to include ramped-up training for the Ukrainian army and deployment of troops by some European states.

“We have today 26 countries who have formally committed … to deploy as ‘reassurance force’ troops in Ukraine, or be present on the ground, in the sea, or in the air,” Macron said alongside Zelenskyy.

He specified that troops would not be deployed “on the front line” and would aim to “prevent any new major aggression”.

Zelensky hailed the move: “I think that today, for the first time in a long time, this is the first such serious concrete step,” he said.

During the summit, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it was necessary “to go even further to apply pressure on Putin to secure a cessation of hostilities”, a Downing Street spokeswoman said.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also urged more pressure, but remained cautious about the scope of involvement.

“Germany will decide on military involvement at the appropriate time once the framework conditions have been clarified,” a government spokesman said after the summit.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said her country would not send troops to Ukraine, but it could help monitor any potential peace deal.

Peace talks stall

Countries met to discuss Ukraine’s security amid growing concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently showing no interest in a peace accord, with alarm intensifying after his high-profile visit to Beijing this week.

Al Jazeera’s Butler said that while Zelenskyy was “very pleased that things seemed to be moving forward”, he had said Putin had “no intention of coming to the table for any form of peace talks”.

Putin had earlier said he would be willing to meet Zelenskyy in Moscow, a call that many viewed as a call for capitulation.

Trump, who has not yet managed to broker talks between Zelenskyy and Putin, warned this week that the Russian leader would “see things happen” if he was unhappy with Moscow’s next steps.

Putin has said Moscow is willing to “resolve all our tasks militarily” in the absence of a peace deal acceptable to the Kremlin. He has also indicated he does not want to see European troops in post-war Ukraine,

“It’s not for them to decide,” NATO chief Mark Rutte shot back Thursday. “I think we really have to stop making Putin too powerful.”

Trump ‘dissatisfied’

Following the video call with Trump, Zelenskyy said the US president was “very dissatisfied” that European countries were still buying Russian oil, pointing the finger specifically at “Hungary and Slovakia”.

The European Union imposed a ban on most oil imports from Russia in 2022, but it made an exception for imports to Slovakia and Hungary to give the landlocked central European countries time to find alternative oil supplies.

Ukraine has targeted Russia’s Druzhba oil pipeline, which carries Russian oil to Slovakia and Hungary, throughout the conflict. Both nations have asked the European Commission to act against Ukraine’s attacks.

A White House official cited by news agency Reuters confirmed that Trump had “emphasised” that European countries must stop purchasing Russian oil, adding that Russia received 1.1 billion euros ($1.28bn) in fuel sales from the EU in one year.

“The president also emphasised that European leaders must place economic pressure on China for funding Russia’s war efforts,” the official said.

The European Commission has proposed legislation to phase out EU imports of Russian oil and gas by January 1, 2028.

The Trump administration has also imposed tariffs on India for buying Russian oil in efforts to pressure the Kremlin to end the war. But the US has been accused of double standards for sparing China – the largest buyer of Russian crude.

Ukrainian drones struck multiple military airbases deep inside Russia on Sunday in a major operation a day before the neighbours held peace talks in Istanbul.

The Russian Defence Ministry said Ukraine had launched drone strikes targeting Russian military airfields across five regions, causing several aircraft to catch fire.

The attacks occurred in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur regions. Air defences repelled the assaults in all but two regions – Murmansk and Irkutsk, the ministry said.

“In the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire,” the Defence Ministry said. FPV drones are unmanned aerial vehicles with cameras on the front that relay live footage to operators, who in turn use those visuals to direct the drones.

The fires were extinguished, and no casualties were reported. Some individuals involved in the attacks had been detained, the Russian Defence Ministry said.

On Sunday night, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the “absolutely brilliant” Ukrainian drone attack on the Telegram messaging app.

But the Sunday attacks were only the latest in a series of audacious hits on Russian military facilities, territory and symbols of power over the past three years of war — often acknowledged by Kyiv, and in some cases widely believed to have been carried out by Ukrainian special forces.

What happened on June 1?

Zelenskyy said 117 drones had been used to attack the Russian bases on Sunday. “Russia has had very tangible losses, and justifiably so,” he said.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that it had hit Russian military planes worth a combined $7bn in a wave of drone strikes on Russian air bases thousands of kilometres behind the front line.

Targets included the Belaya airbase in Irkutsk, about 4,300km (2,670 miles) from the Ukrainian border, and the Olenya airbase in south Murmansk, some 1,800km (1,120 miles) from Ukraine.

Earlier on Sunday, multiple local media reports in Ukraine claimed that the operation was carried out by the SBU using drones smuggled deep into Russia and hidden inside trucks.

At least 41 Russian heavy bombers at four airbases were hit, the reports said. The strikes reportedly hit Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers, which Russia uses to fire long-range missiles at Ukrainian cities.

Russia is yet to confirm the extent of the damage, but the attack could mark Ukraine’s most damaging drone strike of the war to date.

Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, reporting from Kyiv, said it’s “an audacious strike, one that Ukraine has been waiting a long time and patiently to deliver, and it’s come after Russian air strikes into Ukraine have dramatically accelerated over the past couple of weeks”.

What’s the backdrop?

Both Russia and Ukraine have sharply ramped up their drone attacks against the other side in recent days.

Russia launched more than 900 kamikaze drones and 92 missiles last week, killing at least 16 civilians. Those attacks followed days of Ukrainian strikes on Russian military infrastructure in Russia’s Tula, Alabuga and Tatarstan regions, in which Kyiv used at least 800 drones.

Meanwhile, Ukraine sent a delegation to Istanbul led by its Defence Minister Rustem Umerov for talks on Monday with Russian officials. A previous round of talks, on May 16, led to a deal under which Ukraine and Russia exchanged 1,000 prisoners of war each. Monday’s talks led to an agreement on another prisoner swap.

Zelenskyy, who has previously voiced scepticism about Russia’s seriousness about peace talks, said that the Ukrainian delegation would enter the meeting in Istanbul with specific priorities, including “a complete and unconditional ceasefire” and the return of prisoners and abducted children.

Russia has said it has formulated its own peace terms and ruled out a Turkish proposal for the meeting to be held at the leaders’ level.

Monday’s meeting in Turkiye was spurred by US President Donald Trump’s push for a quick deal to end the three-year war. But the meeting did not lead to any major breakthrough.

Trump, who has increasingly demonstrated frustration with the lack of progress towards a ceasefire, recently vented his frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Something has happened to him,” Trump wrote on his social media platform on May 25, referring to Putin. “He has gone absolutely CRAZY!”

Trump told reporters, “We’re in the middle of talking and he’s shooting rockets into Kyiv and other cities.”

The US president is yet to react to Sunday’s Ukrainian attacks on Russian airbases.

The strikes are the latest in a series of stunning, headline-grabbing attacks that Russia has periodically suffered since it launched the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Crimea Bridge attacks, 2022 and 2023

In May 2018, four years after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, Putin drove a truck across a newly built bridge connecting the Russian mainland to the peninsula, enraging Ukrainians.

Ukraine would take its revenge, first in 2022 and then again in 2023.

In October 2022, a truck explosion that Russia blamed on Ukraine blew up a part of the bridge. Russia repaired the damage, and Putin tried to revive the symbolism of 2018, again driving across it, this time in a Mercedes.

But Ukraine would strike again. In July 2023, the bridge that serves as a crucial supply route for Russian forces in Ukraine was blown up. Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee said the strike was carried out by two Ukrainian sea drones. Officials said two people were killed and a child was wounded.

Black Sea Fleet attacks, 2023

In September 2023, Ukraine launched a series of attacks on occupied Crimea, using drones and missiles to target key facilities of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet near Sevastopol.

Satellite images showed that the first attack destroyed half of the Black Sea Fleet’s communications command centre in Verkhnosadove.

Ukraine followed up on that attack with a strike against the Saky airfield in Crimea, which was hosting 12 Russian combat aircraft, including Su-24 and Su-30 fighter-bombers, according to the Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne.

Then came the most devastating of the attacks, on September 22.

Ukraine hit the Black Sea Fleet command headquarters and claimed to have killed 34 officers, including fleet commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov. A further 105 soldiers were reportedly wounded.

Kremlin attack, 2023

In the dead of night in early May 2023, the ultimate symbol of Russian power for centuries — the Kremlin — came under attack, as flashes of light from small explosions over the red building’s citadel were seen in images and grainy video around the world.

Moscow said that two Ukrainian drones had been used in the attack on Putin’s residence, but had been disabled by electronic defences.

“We regard these actions as a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the president’s life, carried out on the eve of Victory Day, the May 9 Parade, at which the presence of foreign guests is also planned,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

Zelenskyy denied that his country had attacked the Russian capital or its president.

“We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory,” Zelenskyy told a news conference in Helsinki, Finland. But independent analysts, including from Western nations that are Ukrainian allies, believe Ukrainian special forces were behind the drone attacks on the Kremlin.

And a year later, Ukraine would blur the line between its territory and Russian land in the escalating war between the neighbours.

Kursk invasion, 2024 and 2025

Ukrainian forces launched a surprise attack on the Kursk region on August 6, 2024, taking Moscow by surprise. Russia began evacuating the neighbouring Belgorod region as the country’s forces were forced to confront Ukraine’s offensive in Western Russia.

At the height of the incursion, Ukrainian forces claimed nearly 1,400 square kilometres (540 square miles) of Kursk — roughly twice the size of Singapore.

By the start of 2025, Russia had most of the territory it lost in Kursk before Ukraine launched a second wave of attacks in January.

However, Kyiv suffered a major setback earlier this year after Trump temporarily cut off all military and intelligence assistance. By early March, Russia had recaptured most of the territory.