Prime Minister Keir Starmer has told his Cabinet the ‘stakes remain high’ but the UK is continuing to work with ‘all its partners’ to secure peace in Ukraine, as Donald Trump castigated European leaders’ failure to end the war.
It comes after the UK prime minister hosted crisis talks with European allies over the country’s future, denigrated by Trump as ‘weak’ leaders of ‘decaying’ nations failing to ‘produce’ anything as ‘the war just keeps going on and on’.
The US president again accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of not reading the latest draft of the peace plan, in an extraordinary attack on Europe and Kyiv in an interview that will not calm concerns he could abandon Ukraine to Russian aggression.
Downing Street said nobody wants peace in Ukraine more than Zelensky and rejected Trump’s criticism of Europe’s failure to ‘produce’.
A No 10 spokesman said: ‘I would reject that in terms of, you’ve seen the number of countries involved in the coalition of the willing discussions, you’ve also seen the work the UK has done in terms of leading the response on sanctions, including against the shadow fleet, but we strongly support the US peace process.’
The official also said: ‘We welcome significant US efforts to bring peace to Ukraine. Nobody wants [that] more than President Zelensky.’
Ukraine and its European allies are likely to insist that any ceasefire comes with security guarantees from both the US and the coalition of the willing convened by the UK and France, while also resisting the transfer of territory to Russia.
The Ukrainian leader, who continues his diplomatic tour of Europe, is expected to send a revised plan to the White House as soon as Tuesday.
In his interview with Politico released on Tuesday, Trump again pushed Zelensky to agree to the US proposal that Ukraine transfer territory to Russia, claiming that Moscow retains the ‘upper hand’ and that Kyiv must ‘play ball’.
US ambassador Warren Stephens is set to visit Downing Street on Tuesday afternoon, as Downing Street stressed the continuing ‘strong relationship’ between Starmer and Trump following the president’s broadside against European leaders and the release of his new national security strategy that was critical of America’s traditional allies.
There are ‘still some outstanding issues’ in the efforts to end the Ukraine conflict, the No 10 spokesman said, ‘but as you’ve seen from both the US and Ukrainian side, intensive work on the peace plan is continuing and will continue over the coming days and weeks’.
In a readout of the Cabinet meeting earlier, the spokesman said: ‘The prime minister said the stakes remained high, but the UK continues to work with all its partners to make progress on securing a just, lasting peace for Ukraine.
‘The Foreign Secretary added that the threat from Russia was wider than just Ukraine, against Europe and undersea cables.’
Monday’s talks raised hopes of progress on using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine.
Downing Street said afterwards that European allies discussed ‘positive progress’ towards unlocking the value of immobilised Russian sovereign assets.
A top Foreign Office civil servant expressed hope that frozen Russian assets will be used to support Ukraine in lieu of paused UK World Bank loan guarantees.
Nick Dyer, second permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office, told the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee that new guarantees ensuring the World Bank continues to lend money to the war-torn nation have been halted as that form of UK assistance is ‘overly concentrated’ in Ukraine.
Asked whether the UK would lift the pause if Kyiv needed more funding, he said: ‘I’m hoping that if we can get through the next two years using the Russian sovereign asset loans or other lending streams, then there won’t be a need for us to call in additional guarantees.’
Starmer has previously said the UK is ‘ready’ to move with the EU on the proposals but Belgium has voiced concerns about using the assets to help Kyiv with reparations, citing financial and legal risks.
By Sophie Wingate and Nina Lloyd, Press Association
Press Association: News
source: PA
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