Earlier today, the so-called Coalition of the Willing, largely made up of European leaders, met in Paris with envoys of US President Donald Trump to try to make further progress on a sustainable peace deal for Ukraine.
With Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky insisting a plan to end the war with Russia is 90% of the way there, no-one in that room wanted to jeopardise keeping the Americans onboard.
But there was an immense elephant in that grand Paris meeting and the underlying atmosphere was extremely tense.
Recent events, including the Trump administration's controversial intervention in Venezuela and his insistence that we need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, loomed large over the discussions.
Greenland, the world's largest island, lies in the Arctic as an autonomous territory of Denmark, and during the Paris meeting, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen faced pressure from European colleagues not to antagonise the US over Greenland, fearing it could impact US support for Ukraine.
The political temperature from Washington has risen greatly, leading leaders of large European nations to issue a statement asserting, Greenland is part of NATO. Security in the Arctic must therefore be achieved collectively, in conjunction with NATO allies including the United States. This was an attempt to reaffirm collective security amidst individual national vulnerabilities.
