Kremlin Demands Co-Authorship of Ukraine Security Guarantees, Threatening to Exclude Europe from Talks
On 14 July 2026, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the Paris Coalition of the Willing framework, stating that security guarantees for Ukraine are impossible to formulate without Russian participation and warning that European countries insisting on the Paris terms would be excluded from any settlement process. The rejection responds directly to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's 13 July declaration that guarantee terms would be decided by Ukraine and its partners, not Moscow. No NATO or E3 government had issued a formal counter-statement by close of business on 14 July, and no evidence in the public record indicates the rejection has altered the calendar for US-mediated talks, which analysts identify as proceeding through a Budapest-Putin channel rather than Doha or Islamabad.