El Mundo: Spain to host closed meeting of "coalition of the willing" on November 4

On Tuesday, November 4, Spain will host a "secret" meeting of the members of the "coalition of the willing" to discuss strengthening support for Ukraine. This was reported by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo with reference to the relevant letter, which was seen by journalists.

The meeting will be hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain. It will be attended by representatives of 35 states.

It will be an intense day of work, starting at 09:00 and ending after 15:30, with two sessions dedicated to discussing ways to help Kyiv.

The meeting was organized with the utmost secrecy. In fact, participants are informed that cell phones are prohibited (they will be kept in a designated place) and that they should not disclose information about the meeting.

"Delegates are asked not to publish information about the meeting on public platforms or social networks," the newspaper writes.

In the first session, participants will discuss how to increase support for Ukraine in order to continue discussions on addressing its urgent financial needs, in particular those related to its military and defense efforts, and how to coordinate initiatives to increase pressure on Russia. Among other things, they seek to clarify aid priorities and reach agreements.

This will be followed by a presentation by Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares, who will share his views with delegations for 30 minutes. However, he will not be present at all working sessions, as this is a lower-level meeting.

In the second session, participants will try to develop a common approach to security guarantees for Ukraine by exchanging views on the current discussions on these guarantees, with a particular focus on the legal, political and diplomatic framework, as well as the potential contribution of a "coalition of the willing" to deter future Russian aggression.

This meeting comes two weeks after the leaders met in London to strengthen support for Ukraine. At that meeting, they discussed the need to send Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv and the potential use of Russian assets frozen in European banks to finance the war and reconstruction. The latter point is complicated, and the countries have not yet found a solution, the journalists reminded.

• On October 21, Bloomberg reported that Ukraine and the EU are developing a 12-point plan to end the full-scale war.
• On October 27, Zelenskiy said that Ukraine would prepare a peace plan based on the Gaza model in a week or 10 days.