Ukraine 'coalition of the willing' presses ahead with force planning amid doubts about US support

BRUSSELS (AP) — Britain's defense minister on Thursday urged his counterparts from around 30 countries to press ahead with plans to deploy troops to Ukraine to police any future peace agreement with Russia, as questions remained over whether the United States would provide backup.

Chairing the first meeting of the so-called coalition of the willing at the level of defense ministers, U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey said its members must ensure "that we’re fully prepared for the moment a peace agreement is reached.”

“We must be ready for when that peace comes. That’s why the work of this coalition is so vital," Healey said at NATO headquarters in Brussels. He added that 200 military planners have been developing plans to deepen European involvement in Ukraine.

In a post on social media, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that “Ukraine is ready for peace — one that is just and backed by strength.”

Ukrainian government officials and military analysts have said that Russian forces are preparing to launch a fresh military offensive in Ukraine in the coming weeks to maximize pressure on Kyiv and strengthen the Kremlin’s negotiating position in ceasefire talks.

As usual with coalition gatherings, the United States did not take part. The success of the coalition’s operation hinges on U.S. backup with airpower or other military assistance, but the Trump administration has made no public commitment to provide support.

The Netherlands, Sweden and Finland underlined the “crucial” role of the United States.

“The United States is a crucial player still in guaranteeing lasting security” in Ukraine, said Finnish Defense Minister Annit Häkkänen. His Swedish counterpart, Pål Jonson, said success in Ukraine requires “some form of U.S. engagement" while Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans called American support “very important" but said the form it took might differ, depending on the chosen type of European mission in Ukraine.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said ministers were “trying to keep the United States on board."

Amid that uncertainty and U.S. warnings that Europe must take care of its own security and that of Ukraine in future, the force is seen as a first test of the continent’s willingness to defend itself and its interests.

Its make-up will depend on the nature of any peace agreement, but the contingent is unlikely to be stationed at Ukraine's border with Russia. It would be located farther from the ceasefire line, perhaps even outside Ukraine, and deploy to counter any Russian attack.

Building a force big enough to act as a credible deterrent is proving a considerable effort for nations that shrank their militaries after the Cold War but are now rearming. U.K. officials have talked about possibly 10,000 to 30,000 troops.

Healey said the “reassurance force for Ukraine would be a committed and credible security arrangement to ensure that any negotiated peace does bring what President Trump has pledged: a lasting peace for Ukraine.”

But some countries are reluctant to contribute personnel without U.S. support. The Europeans cannot match U.S. weapons systems, intelligence gathering and satellite surveillance capabilities.

More fundamentally, members of the coalition are still trying to establish how the force would operate: Leading countries want a robust deterrence force to defend against any Russian attack.

Brekelmans said key questions must be answered like “what is the potential mission? What is going to be the goal? What is the mandate? What would we do in different scenarios, for example, if there would be any escalation regarding Russia?”

Some countries — Italy and the Netherlands, for example — require the approval of their national parliaments before they can deploy troops.

On Friday, representatives from around 50 nations will gather at NATO to drum up military support for Ukraine. That meeting will be chaired by Britain and Germany. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to join the meeting via video from Washington.

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AP writer Sam McNeil contributed to this report from Barcelona, Spain.

Britain's Defense Secretary John Healey, left, sits next to French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu as he talks during a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

Flags of the Alliance members flap in the wind prior to a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu arrives for a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu, right, talks with Romania's Defense Minister Angel Tilvar as they arrive for a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

Britain's Defense Secretary John Healey, center, talks with Romania's Defense Minister Angel Tilvar as they arrive for a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

Belgium's Defense Minister Theo Francken, right, talks with Estonia's Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur, right, during a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, left, speaks with Britain's Defense Secretary John Healey, center, as French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu arrives for a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

Ukraine's Defense Minister Rustem Umerov arrives for a coalition of the willing defence ministers meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas speaks during a press conference at the end of the EU-Ukraine Association Council at the European Council building in Brussels, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, French President Emmanuel Macron, right, and Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speak during a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of a summit for "coalition of the willing" at the Elysee Palace, Thursday, March 27, 2025. (Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)