European leaders have affirmed their support for Ukraine at a Paris summit and agreed now was “not the time” to lift sanctions against Russia, but with splits remaining on Franco-British plans for a “reassurance force” to help guarantee an eventual ceasefire, writes The Guardian.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Thursday the meeting of more than two dozen heads of state and government had agreed unanimously that sanctions on Moscow should not be eased until “peace has clearly been established” in Ukraine.

The third meeting of what France and the UK have called the “coalition of the willing” for Ukraine was called amid widespread concern that Donald Trump may be open to rolling back some sanctions in order to get Russia to agree to a partial ceasefire deal.

“Ukraine had the courage to accept an unconditional 30-day ceasefire,” Macron said after the summit, also attended by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, and the heads of the European Commission and council.

“Since that Ukrainian announcement, there has been no Russian response,” Macron said. “There have just been new conditions posed [by Moscow] for a much more limited and hypothetical ceasefire”.