UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced a four-point plan to work with Ukraine to end the war and defend the country from Russia.<\/p>\n
The UK, France and other countries will step up their efforts in a \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d and seek to involve the US in their support for Ukraine, he said on Sunday \u2013 after calling a summit of 18 leaders \u2013 mostly from Europe and including Volodymyr Zelensky \u2013 three days earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are at a crossroads in history today,\u201d Starmer said after the summit while Zelensky said Kyiv felt \u201cstrong support\u201d and the gathering showed \u201cEuropean unity at an extremely high level not seen for a long time\u201d.<\/p>\n
It comes two days after a fiery exchange between the Ukrainian leader and US President Donald Trump in the White House.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all working together in Europe in order to find a basis for cooperation with America for a true peace and guaranteed security,\u201d Zelensky said after the summit.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron told Le Figaro newspaper that Paris and London wanted to propose a one-month truce between Russia and Ukraine \u201cin the air, at sea and on energy infrastructure\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a news conference shortly after the meeting of leaders, Starmer said four points had been agreed:<\/p>\n
Starmer also announced an additional \u00a31.6bn ($2bn) of UK export finance to buy more than 5,000 air defence missiles. This comes on top of a \u00a32.2bn loan to provide more military aid to Ukraine backed by profits from frozen Russian assets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to learn from the mistakes of the past, we cannot accept a weak deal which Russia can breach with ease, instead any deal must be backed by strength,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The prime minister did not state which countries had agreed to join this coalition of the willing, but said that those who had committed would intensify planning with real urgency.<\/p>\n
The UK, he said, would back its commitment with \u201cboots on the ground, and planes in the air\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEurope must do the heavy lifting,\u201d he said, before adding that the agreement would need US backing and had to include Russia, but that Moscow could not be allowed to dictate terms.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me be clear, we agree with Trump on the urgent need for a durable peace. Now we need to deliver together,\u201d Starmer said.<\/p>\n
When asked if the US under Trump was an unreliable ally, he said: \u201cNobody wanted to see what happened last Friday, but I do not accept that the US is an unreliable ally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Countries at the summit included France, Poland, Sweden, Turkey, Norway, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, Finland, Italy, Spain and Canada.<\/p>\n
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that there was now an urgent need to \u201cre-arm Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n
These sentiments were echoed by Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, who said the meeting had seen European countries \u201cstepping up\u201d to make sure Ukraine has what it needs to \u201cstay in the fight as long as it has to continue\u201d.<\/p>\n
After the summit, Zelensky went to Sandringham where he met King Charles III. He later spoke to reporters at a final press briefing where he said he was ready to sign a deal on minerals with the US.<\/p>\n
Ukraine was expected to sign the deal \u2013 which would grant the US access to Ukraine\u2019s rare mineral reserves \u2013 during Zelensky\u2019s visit to Washington, but the Ukrainian delegation ultimately left early after a heated confrontation with Trump in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Sunday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned a deal on minerals between the US and Ukraine could not be signed \u201cwithout a peace deal\u201d with Russia.<\/p>\n
But when asked by the BBC about the future of the deal following the summit, Zelensky said it was ready to be signed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe agreement that\u2019s on the table will be signed if the parties are ready,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s summit concludes a hectic week of diplomacy, which included visits to Washington by Macron, Starmer and Zelensky.<\/p>\n
Zelensky\u2019s meeting, however, culminated in a heated exchanged with Trump and US Vice-President JD Vance, in which the US president accused his Ukrainian counterpart of \u201cgambling with World War Three\u201d.<\/p>\n
Trump has said he wants to end the war in Ukraine and has expressed trust in Russian President Vladimir Putin, to the consternation of many of his Western allies.<\/p>\n
The US has also begun peace talks with Russia \u2013 excluding Ukraine.<\/p>\n
At one point, the US leader accused Ukraine of starting the war \u2013 even though it was Putin who launched a full-scale invasion of Russia\u2019s neighbour on 24 February 2022.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced a four-point plan to work with Ukraine to end the war and defend the country from Russia. The UK, France and other countries will step up their efforts in a \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d and seek to involve the US in their support for Ukraine, he said on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}