John Irish

The Trump administration has ordered some French companies with U.S. government contracts to comply with his executive order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programmes, highlighting the extraterritorial reach of U.S. policies and their potential impact on European corporate practices.

European leaders vowed on Thursday to strengthen Kyiv's army to ensure it was the cornerstone of future security in Ukraine, while France and Britain tried to expand support for a planned foreign "reassurance force" in the event of a truce with Russia.

European efforts to create security arrangements for Ukraine are shifting from sending troops to other alternatives as they face political and logistical constraints, and the prospect of Russia and the United States opposing their plans, officials said.

France will provide some 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion) of extra military aid to Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, accusing Russia of reinterpreting and rewriting recent limited ceasefire deals.

Automated systems splutter as raw materials are fed into the machines to begin the process of creating highly-explosive pellets ready to be harnessed for use in thousands of French-made artillery shells, most of which will head to Ukraine.

Foreign ministers of leading Western democracies sought to show a united front in Canada on Thursday after seven weeks of rising tensions between U.S. allies and President Donald Trump over his upending of foreign policy on Ukraine and imposing of tariffs.

It could have been disastrous. Just a day before the end of a three-day meeting of G7 foreign ministers in a remote snowy Canadian resort, some of the United States' closest allies wondered whether their divisions could explode into public.

The United States drew closer to its G7 allies on Friday, at least momentarily, to back Ukraine's territorial integrity and warn Russia to follow Kyiv in accepting a ceasefire or face possible further sanctions.

More than 30 army chiefs among Washington's closest allies met in Paris on Tuesday without their U.S. counterparts, seeking to take on more responsibility over the Ukraine war given President Donald Trump's unpredictability and rapprochement with Moscow.

The U.S. opposes language that could harm its efforts to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday, as Washington wrangled with G7 allies ahead of a meeting this week, further alarming them.