French President Emmanuel Macron will discuss with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk the deployment of a postwar peacekeeping force in Ukraine when the two meet in Warsaw on Thursday, a European Union diplomat and a French official told POLITICO.

"It is true," confirmed the EU diplomat when asked about a Polish media report in the Rzeczpospolita newspaper claiming the two countries were talking over a potential 40,000-strong peacekeeping force composed of troops from foreign countries.

The diplomat did not elaborate on which countries the soldiers might come from.

However, a senior Polish official said they were surprised by Macron's reported proposal, POLITICO reported.

"This is not a formula that would allow us to take such a decision," the official said, adding that peacekeeping missions should be decided under the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, not a bilateral discussion with the French president.

The peacekeeping force proposal is separate from Macron's previous idea to send military instructors to Ukraine during the ongoing war.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seemingly referenced such a plan when meeting with Friedrich Merz, Germany's likely next chancellor.

"I'll tell you frankly, we can think and work on Emmanuel [Macron]'s position," Zelenskyy told reporters.

"Do you remember, he proposed that […] troops of this or that country be present in some territories of Ukraine, which would guarantee us security while Ukraine is not in NATO," he said.

The Elysée presidential palace said in a statement that Macron was traveling to Poland to discuss Ukraine "in a new transatlantic context."