(Bloomberg) — European leaders sought to assemble what Britain called a “coalition of the willing” to secure Ukraine after any US-brokered ceasefire, as they gathered in London to coordinate defense spending hikes amid concerns of an American pullback.
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UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who hosted the emergency security summit on Sunday, said Britain and France and “one or two others” would work with Ukraine on a “plan to stop the fighting.” The summit came after a week of frantic diplomacy marked by a disastrous Oval Office clash between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy over the prospects of a ceasefire with Russia without American security guarantees.
“We are at a crossroads in history today,” Starmer told reporters after the meeting with leaders of more than a dozen US allies, including Zelenskiy. “This is not a moment for more talk. It’s time to act. Time to step up and lead and unite around a new plan for a just and enduring peace.”
The British prime minister, along with others including France’s Emmanuel Macron, have been working the phones since the bust-up at the White House raised the risk of a sudden halt in American support for a war that has raged for more than three years. Starmer spoke with both Macron and Trump after hosting Zelenskiy in Downing Street on Saturday, describing the conversations as a “step in the right direction.”
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stressed the need to keep the trans-Atlantic alliance together during a visit to Downing Street ahead of the summit. “It is very, very important that we avoid the risk that the West divides,” Meloni told Starmer.
On Fox News Sunday, the US’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, suggested that Zelenskiy would need to apologize to Trump if he wanted the relationship to move forward. “There’s going to have to be a rebuilding of any kind of interest in good faith negotiations before President Trump is going to be willing to re-engage in any of this,” Gabbard said.
At the heart of European concerns has been Trump’s direct and fast-paced diplomacy with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and still controls about one-fifth of the country’s territory. The US president has at the same time urged the Europeans to take the leading role in supporting Ukraine, prompting governments across the continent to further ramp up defense spending.
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Starmer convened the summit at Lancaster House — including Macron, as well as delegations from Canada, Germany, Norway and Turkey — in a bid to strengthen Ukraine’s position, secure a “lasting peace” and plan for security guarantees. It followed a similar gathering two weeks ago in Paris.
The grouping underscores the need to both move more quickly than the consensus-driven European Union and bring in some outside members with more robust military capabilities. Starmer has sought to reassert leadership in Europe post-Brexit by pledging to increase the defense budget to 2.5% of economic output, up from 2.3% currently.
Starmer also on Sunday announced a £1.6 billion ($2 billion) loan to supply more than 5,000 air-defense missiles to Ukraine. The missiles will be made at a Thales plant in Northern Ireland, creating 200 jobs.
The broader European Council will meet on Thursday to discuss a €20 billion ($21 billion) military package for Ukraine and steps to boost defense spending, including a potential loosening of fiscal rules. Still, many have been reluctant to put “boots on the ground” so close to the front line with Russia.
“We’ve got to find those countries in Europe that are prepared to be a bit more forward-leaning — I’m not criticizing anyone here,” Starmer told the BBC in an interview on Sunday. “But rather than sort of move at the pace of every single member, every single country in Europe, which would, in the end, be quite a slow pace, I do think we’ve got to probably get to a coalition of the willing.”
Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, said that Russia won’t stop with Ukraine if it’s not countered with strength in any negotiations over a ceasefire or peace. “The only thing that Vladimir Putin understands is power,” Stubb told Bloomberg TV on Sunday in London. “You show any kind of a weakness and he will basically go after you.”
Starmer said on Sunday that the UK and France were seeking to help secure any truce brokered by Trump and Putin. “We’ve now agreed that the UK along with France and possibly one or two others will work on a plan to stop the fighting and we’ll discuss that plan with the United States,” he told the BBC.
Asked if Trump had agreed to provide a US military “backstop” for any ceasefire agreement, Starmer said only that an American security guarantee was an “intense part of the discussion” during his meeting with the president on Thursday in Washington.
While the British prime minister said he thought Zelenskiy had done nothing wrong in the Oval Office and that the encounter between the two presidents had made him “uncomfortable,” he declined to criticize Trump. He said it was better for the UK to continue talking with both sides and that he believed the US president wanted a deal with staying power.
“I’m clear in my mind, that he does want lasting peace. He does want an end to the fighting in Ukraine,” Starmer said in the interview. “I’m absolutely clear that’s what his motive is.”
–With assistance from Donato Paolo Mancini, Zoe Schneeweiss, Kati Pohjanpalo, Francine Lacqua and Greg Sullivan.
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