NATO’s 32 chiefs of defence held a video conference on Wednesday to examine possible security guarantees for Ukraine that could underpin a future peace deal with Russia, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of the alliance’s Military Committee, said. U.S. Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich, who oversees NATO operations in Europe, was expected to brief the session on the battlefield situation and recent high-level diplomacy. In parallel, a smaller group of senior officers—led by the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and including roughly half a dozen NATO counterparts—met in Washington to draft detailed options, Western officials said. The talks, which have no fixed timetable, will feed into political deliberations among alliance governments; any final pledge must be signed off by heads of state and government. Kyiv argues that robust, Western-backed guarantees are essential to deter future Russian aggression. “We need strong security guarantees to ensure a truly secure and lasting peace,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote after fresh overnight missile and drone strikes hit six Ukrainian regions. Moscow dismissed the process, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying collective security arrangements that exclude Russia “will not work.” The military discussions follow U.S. President Donald Trump’s separate meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and Zelenskyy in Washington last week, which produced no concrete cease-fire. European leaders have since intensified coordination on a potential multinational force that could monitor or enforce any agreement while the wider question of Ukraine’s eventual NATO membership remains unresolved.