UK Says Europe Needs ‘Coalition of Willing’ for Ukraine

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(Bloomberg) — Keir Starmer said a “coalition of the willing” was needed to provide Ukraine with security guarantees after any US-brokered ceasefire, as the UK prime minister prepared to urge European leaders gathered in London to rapidly ramp up defense spending. 

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Starmer said that such a grouping would likely include the UK and France and “one or two others,” who would work with Ukraine on a “plan to stop the fighting.” His remarks 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.

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“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.”

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. 

The Trump administration has privately made clear it wants a public apology from Zelenskiy to mend relations, one European official said.

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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 the 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. 

Still, few are keen to put their troops closer to danger as part of any peacekeeping force in Ukraine. Starmer is convening more than a dozen leaders at Lancaster House, following a similar summit two weeks ago in Paris, in a bid to strengthen Ukraine’s position, secure a “lasting peace” and plan for security guarantees. 

Starmer will tell attendees — including Macron, Meloni, Zelenskiy, as well as delegations from Canada, Germany, Norway and Turkey — that they need to face the “brutal reality” about defense spending, according to a British official. They must realize that “carefully crafted speeches” backing Ukraine won’t be enough to persuade Trump to agree to the security guarantees they want, the official said.

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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 said on Sunday that the UK and France were seeking to help the US reach a ceasefire, as well as securing 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 and Zoe Schneeweiss.

(Updates with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in fifth paragraph.)

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