KYIV, Ukraine >> Top military officials from across Europe and beyond joined talks in Paris on Tuesday on the possible contours of an international security force for Ukraine — an idea that France and Britain are pushing to deter any future Russian aggression on its neighbor if Moscow and Kyiv agree to stop fighting.

Participants said they expected the closed-door discussions to be big-picture and broad-brush, providing a gauge of which nations might be ready to join a coalition for Ukraine but not, at this stage, committing them to providing specific numbers of troops, equipment or other assistance.

The French- and British-led effort to reassure Ukraine and help protect it from any renewed Russian aggression if it agrees to a ceasefire comes as Kyiv is under intense pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to engage in peace talks. Senior officials from Ukraine and the United States opened separate talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Tuesday focused on halting the full-scale invasion that Russia launched in 2022.

French President Emmanuel Macron attended part of he Paris meeting of army chiefs of 34 countries and other military representatives, including some who were scheduled to dial-in remotely from Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Macron said it was time to “move from concept to plan” to define credible security guarantees and insisted the French-British blueprint should come along with the NATO alliance and its capabilities, Macron’s office said, yet without offering detailed specifics.

Slovenia’s army chief at the meeting, Lt. Gen. Robert Glavaš, said his NATO and European Union country is willing to be part of the effort. But he said he was hoping for a clearer picture of how a post-ceasefire international force for Ukraine might work, what its missions might be, which countries want be part of it, and whether it would have a mandate from the United Nations or another body.

“The question is: ‘What next?’” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Who will go there? As we know in Europe, many countries, especially small countries, don’t have a lot of troops.”

Western and Ukrainian officials said there is no definitive plan for military options yet. The AP spoke to Western and Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, as well as French officials in Paris and British officials in London. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to speak openly about sensitive matters.

The United States — NATO’s most militarily powerful member — wasn’t invited to the Paris talks because European nations wanted to show that they are able to shoulder a large part of the job of safeguarding Ukraine once a truce is in effect, a French military official said.

For Ukrainian officials, key questions are how such a coalition would react if Russia violates a future ceasefire, whether it would respond militarily to a large Russian offensive and how quickly.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has welcomed the proposal but expressed skepticism, telling The AP in an interview in February that foreign troops alone would not be a sufficient guarantee of security for his country, and that such a plan should be backed up by weapons from the U.S. and Europe, and support for Kyiv to develop its own defense industry.

“Diplomats are discussing, military officials are discussing, but we still don’t have real proposals,” said a senior Ukrainian official. The talks “are not in the first stage, we did a lot in the first stage, but we still don’t have a real solid approach.”

As Trump has appeared to nix the idea of U.S. security guarantees and other U.S. officials said this will fall on Europe to enforce, the French-British plan looks to create a force equipped with enough military might to dissuade Russia from attacking Ukraine again. “That is the crux of it,” said a Western official in Kyiv.

A French military official said the force could include heavy weaponry and weapons stockpiles that could be rushed within hours or days to aid in Ukraine’s defense.