Prime Minister Keir Starmer offered British troops on Sunday to help guarantee the security of Ukraine as part of any peace agreement, while he and other European leaders have summoned to coordinate a response to the talks of the president Trump with Russia at the end of the war in Ukraine.
In An article published in the Daily Telegraph Sunday, Mr. Starmer wrote that he was “ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary”.
It was the first time that Mr. Starmer explicitly said that he was ready to send British troops to Ukraine. When President Emmanuel Macron, from France, raised the possibility for the first time to send Western peacekeeping troops for Ukraine last year, the idea was rejected by other members of the ‘NATO. But he has gained ground in recent months, especially before the inauguration of Mr. Trump.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, from Ukraine, praised Mr. Starmer’s announcement, saying to an online press conference on Monday that it was an “important” start for European deliberations on the reception of a maintenance force Peace – An idea he conceded had “skeptical” on the continent.
Mr. Starmer had suggested in January that Great Britain would be open to the idea, but his article by Daily Telegraph left nothing open to interpretation, claiming that the decision to commit British troops was not light on.
But “ensuring lasting peace in Ukraine which protects its long-term sovereignty is essential if we want to dissuade Putin from a new assault in the future,” he wrote, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of the Russia.
“The end of this war, when it comes, cannot simply become a temporary break before Putin attacks again,” added Mr. Starmer.
The tenor and the calendar of his article were notable: before talks between Washington and Moscow which, according to them, aim to end the war, and on the eve of an emergency meeting of European leaders to formulate a response .
In another notable development, the Kremlin has not rejected Mr. Starmer’s proposal – a departure from the previous language of Russia, in which any suggestion of an increased involvement by NATO members has generally been distorted by Moscow as a step towards a wider war.
“This would mean that NATO forces would be deployed in Ukrainian territory,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri S. Peskov said on Monday. “This means that this is a very complicated question, and for the moment, no substantial discussion has taken place on this subject.”
US and Russian officials are expected to meet on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, with regard to preliminary talks but who have made the alarm in Europe about their lack of European and Ukrainian involvement.
The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey V. Lavrov, and the foreign policy advisor to Mr. Putin, Yuri Ushakov, will witness the discussions in Riyadh, according to Mr. Peskov.
The meeting “will first be devoted to restoring the entire Russian-American relations complex,” said Peskov. “It will also be devoted to the preparation of possible negotiations on the Ukrainian regulations,” he added.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Sunday that if an opportunity arose for a “broader conversation”, she would understand Ukraine and Europe.
Riyadh’s meeting stresses that Mr. Trump has an accelerated calendar to conclude an agreement to end the war and that he seems determined to carry out negotiations with bilateral Russia, at least for the moment.
Left of these discussions, Mr. Starmer and the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as senior officials of the European Union and NATO, will meet on Monday in Paris to discuss the war and European security.
Starmer wrote in his article that he urged other leaders to increase military spending and play a greater role in NATO.
He added that the path of Ukraine to join NATO was “irreversible”, signaling a split with the Trump administration, which does not support Ukraine to join the Mutual Defense Alliance. Mr. Starmer plans to go to Washington to meet Mr. Trump next week.
Ukraine has made NATO belonging to NATO a key strategic objective, hoping that the protection of the alliance would be preserved against future Russian aggressions. But to join during the war was still unlikely, because it would put NATO members in direct conflict with Russia.
Starmer said that Europe and the United States should continue to work in close collaboration to conclude a sustainable peace agreement.
“An American security guarantee is essential for lasting peace because only the United States can dissuade Putin from attacking again,” he wrote.
The initial response in Great Britain to the proposal of Mr. Starmer concerning the soldiers of peace has been cautious. There has been a strong support for Ukraine through the political gap in the country, and the British army has been deployed abroad in recent decades, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But the failure of these military campaigns illustrates the political risk of sending troops in combat situations – and underlines the importance of reaching a credible and lasting end to the fighting in Ukraine before the soldiers of peace could not be deployed.
John Sawers, a former British Intelligence Service chief, said there was risks to undertake such an operation.
“We must be very clear what mission is, what are the rules of commitment if the Russians attack,” he told the BBC. “Let us bring or just relation to another body?”
Anton Troanovski,, Stephen castle And Andrew E. Kramer Contributed reports.
