On 24th October, Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, and Emmanuel Macron, President of France, co-hosted a virtual meeting of the so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’. The coalition is a group of over 30 countries that have pledged to support Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion, including financial and military support, placing sanctions on Russia and the proposed deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force after hostilities have ceased.
Having first been conceived in early 2025, there have been numerous meetings of the Coalition of the Willing throughout the year. However, questions have been raised as to how the coalition will help to secure peace in Ukraine. As the United Kingdom (UK) is one of the nations spearheading the effort, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked seven experts: How should Britain cultivate the Coalition of the Willing?
Dr Przemysław Biskup and Maria Piechowska
Senior Research Fellow, Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM), and Senior Lecturer, Warsaw School of Economics (SGH)
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Senior Research Fellow, Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM)
The Coalition of the Willing has become the key European platform for sustaining free and open nations’ resolve on Ukraine. Yet, it remains an informal forum without institutional machinery or a collective budget, relying on voluntary coordination and political goodwill.
While the latest leaders’ online meeting declared unity on tightening economic pressure on Russia and curbing its energy revenues, the coalition’s capacity for sustained action depends to a great extent on the determination of its leaders and their willingness to lead by example. The UK should remain one of them, given its economic, military and geographical position in Europe, further strengthened by the 100 Year Partnership with Ukraine, signed in January 2025, as well as the Kensington Treaty with Germany, the Northwood Declaration with France and the 2017 Defence Treaty with Poland.
From Poland’s perspective, Britain’s leadership is of the utmost importance. It creates a more balanced relationship between the United States (US) and Europe, and encourages increased support for Ukraine. The UK should push for a more structured coalition, e.g., shared enforcement mechanisms for sanctions and burden-sharing on aid. In the light of recent American sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, and the European Union’s (EU) 19th sanction package aimed at Russian oil and gas exports, maintaining coordination across Europe is crucial.
Deploying immobilised Russian assets for Ukraine’s reconstruction has already become necessary, both in the face of leading European countries’ budget restraints and the scale of needs after the change in American policy under Donald Trump, President of the US. Britain controls the second biggest share of these assets in Europe, after Belgium. The decisions to break with the existing restraints and use frozen Russian sovereign assets would give the coalition proper financial weight.
Executive Editor, Internationale Politik Quarterly and Internationale Politik, and International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy
Sir Keir showed exemplary leadership when setting up the Coalition of the Willing with Macron at a critical moment for Europe in early 2025. It will likely forge the continent’s future security order, and His Majesty’s (HM) Government should keep up the UK’s much-needed leadership role.
Of the many options to develop the coalition further, one seems particularly worthwhile at present – strongly encouraging Germany to play its full role. When the coalition was formed, Berlin was in political limbo. Having lost early elections, Olaf Scholz was only a caretaker Chancellor, and Friedrich Merz, his successor, was not yet installed. However, Germany’s somewhat hesitant attitude – German representatives reportedly look to the ceiling and stay mum when the question of concrete commitments is posed – is not only explained by Berlin being absent from the coalition’s creation. Conflicting signals from the Merz government and a certain degree of unwillingness suggest that the political leadership has not yet fully grasped the coalition’s importance, while deep-seated fears and self-doubt in military affairs resurface.
With the 2024 Trinity House Agreement, Britain and Germany have already embarked on deeper military cooperation. Safeguarding Ukraine militarily after a ceasefire should be added to its project list. This could eventually take the form of a joint British-German brigade, similar to the Franco-German brigade formed in 1989 – whose potential deployment to Ukraine, strangely enough, is not yet part of the discussion. Not only would it be the first time the Franco-German brigade does something really useful for some time, bilateral or possibly trilateral formations would address Berlin’s (unfounded) worries of Bundeswehr overstretch and overexposure.
It would also bring the message home that securing Ukraine militarily is a task which Germany cannot shy away from by ‘helping in other ways’. Europe’s self-proclaimed future ‘strongest conventional force’ should be at the centre of the effort, and the UK can help it in getting there.
Doctoral Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of Surrey
Britain’s credibility in security and defence remains strong, and the ability to lead the Coalition of the Willing on the ground in Ukraine poses strategic and tactical benefits for the UK, Ukraine, and allies and partners who join the coalition. Britain should offer ready forces, possibly through the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), to anchor the coalition, based on speed and credibility rather than focusing on bureaucratic military issues. Investment should be prepared to develop pre-positioned assets for logistics, cyber, and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, which would help nations within the coalition to identify existing areas where they can adopt a significant role.
Twinned with this, Britain should encourage deepening Ukrainian involvement. This involves aligning and training Ukrainian forces with expeditionary forces, deploying additional equipment for Ukrainian partners, and identifying engineering and maintenance issues which will need to be tackled ahead of time.
Lastly, building the coalition should start on the domestic front in each potential ally nation and in Ukraine. For example, this could involve creating a forward-looking set of strategic communications to explain the need for the coalition, creating contingencies in all coalition languages, and training civilian and military staff in local needs and understanding in Ukraine.
All in all, the UK has the opportunity to lead one of the most necessary, streamlined and mutually beneficial operations in recent years, and should see this opportunity as a way to revitalise the 21st century expeditionary model. It should align with the values that Ukrainians are fighting and dying for, and ensuring the protection of what will remain a fragile eventual ceasefire.
Programme Director for Security Studies, Centre for Defence Strategies, and Joint Programme Leader, Future of Ukraine Programme, Centre for Geopolitics, University of Cambridge
Britain’s leadership in the Coalition of the Willing cannot rest on goodwill alone. To remain credible and effective, the UK should act both as convener and enabler, empowering partners to assume distinct, complementary roles. Some nations will lead in logistics and industrial supply, others in sanctions enforcement or reconstruction. The coalition should now evolve from an improvised network of support into a coherent mechanism delivering integrated capabilities – economic pressure, defence strength and recovery planning – working in concert.
Britain and other European nations – save Hungary – have maintained steadfast support for Ukraine throughout 2025, pairing increased defence spending with renewed commitments to European rearmament. According to HM Government, the UK has pledged £21.8 billion in total assistance: £13 billion in military aid, £5.3 billion in non-military support and £3.5 billion in export-finance guarantees for reconstruction. This also includes £283 million in bilateral assistance for humanitarian, energy and recovery programmes. Additionally, in 2025, HM Government has announced a £350 million investment to expand Ukrainian drone supplies from 10,000 to 100,000, and is providing 350 Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (ASRAAMs), funded through revenues from sanctioned Russian assets.
On 15th October 2025, the UK also imposed 90 new sanctions, targeting Rosneft, Lukoil, Chinese oil terminals and 44 tankers in the ‘shadow fleet’ to tighten the squeeze on Russia’s oil revenues – the core of the Kremlin’s war economy. The US followed with similar measures, signalling renewed transatlantic unity. Yet, the challenge remains global, as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India continue to buy discounted Russian oil despite rising tariffs and diplomatic pressure – albeit now at reduced levels.
Britain’s leadership in the evolving coalition should now rest on five essential pillars: strategic framing, tangible commitments, measurable progress, shared responsibility and enduring support to secure the peace which will follow a Ukrainian victory. In practice, this means turning principles into action: unlocking frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s recovery, translating promises of security guarantees into concrete mechanisms and working tirelessly to keep the transatlantic bond strong. It also means persuading American partners to maintain the flow of advanced weaponry, while aligning collective strategy to meet the mounting challenge posed by the Russian-Chinese partnership (which some may deny).
Professor of International Relations, University of Kent
The Coalition of the Willing should now move beyond its ‘start-up’ phase. With the UK as co-leader, its next evolution should focus less on preparing to enforce a notional peace and more on securing Ukraine for the long term – peace agreement or not.
Britain should use its convening power to shift the coalition’s centre of gravity towards deterrence by denial: enabling Ukraine to defend itself credibly, independently and enduringly. This requires transitioning from ad hoc pledges to structured defence partnerships. The UK should press coalition partners for a collective multi-year capability-building plan, underpinned by defence industrial cooperation and joint training initiatives. The coalition should become a platform for developing interoperable air and missile defences, deep precision fires and resilient logistics networks inside Ukraine.
Rather than waiting for a ceasefire, Britain should advocate deploying liaison and advisory teams now, thus laying the groundwork for future basing or prepositioning arrangements. Meanwhile, it should also help to normalise Ukraine’s strategic integration with Euro-Atlantic allies and partners, using the coalition as a mechanism for ensuring that the country becomes a ‘shadow’ member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), with the greatest degree of integration and compatibility with the alliance short of full membership. The UK should drop the ‘coalition’ label, and build a Ukraine Defence Organisation.
Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham, and Senior Research Fellow, The Foreign Policy Centre
The Coalition of the Willing is potentially a key mechanism for Britain to project influence and shape the emerging international order. The strength of the UK’s position in the coalition derives from the strength of its defence industrial base, its role as a key player in the transatlantic alliance and the convening power which it retains as a permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council.
Cultivating the Coalition of the Willing requires leaning into these strengths. This is both in Britain’s national interest itself, and aligns well with the national interests of others in the coalition with whom the UK shares an interest in stability and security anchored in whatever can be preserved – and, possibly in the future, rebuilt – of the rules-based international order.
In doing this, it is also in the British interest to think beyond the current geographic extent of the Coalition of the Willing, and consider how links with nations in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, for example, can be consolidated and expanded to strengthen it.
Building a consensus around how this can be done, and how to further the coalition’s shared interests, would be an important contribution to its long-term future goals, and its effectiveness as a credible pole in the new multipolar world order.
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