Starmer to Join EU and NATO Leaders in Backing Zelensky Ahead of Trump Meeting

Sir Keir Starmer will join EU and Nato leaders to bolster Volodymyr Zelensky in his crunch White House meeting with Donald Trump on Monday.

They will present a united front in the hope of moderating Mr Trump’s treatment of the Ukrainian leader, whom he humiliated at the Oval Office in February.

European ministers fear that Mr Zelensky is walking into a trap laid by Vladimir Putin.

The Ukrainian leader said on Sunday that the ‘coalition of the willing’ – the UK and other nations that have pledged to support Kyiv – held a ‘useful’ two-hour video conference on Sunday.

He revealed that they had a ‘common view on what a peace agreement should be’ and insisted it did not include changing state borders by force.

In a sign of EU leaders’ bullishness, French president Emmanuel Macron said afterwards: ‘If we’re not strong today, we’ll pay dearly tomorrow.

It came after Boris Johnson called on Sir Keir to lead global efforts to protect Ukraine from being carved up following Friday’s ‘vomit-inducing’ meeting between Mr Trump and Putin.

Writing in The Mail on Sunday, the former prime minister insisted that although the summit made him ‘retch’, it was ‘justifiable and even essential’.

He said it offered hope that ‘one day this war will end with a peace that protects Ukrainian freedom’ – but to make that happen ‘the Europeans, led by Britain, will have to step up’

Sunday’s meeting of Europe’s heads of state came after Putin was widely regarded to have gained the upper hand at Friday’s summit in Anchorage, Alaska.

He was welcomed back on to the world stage from pariah status with red carpets and a ride in the US presidential limo before reportedly persuading Mr Trump to drop calls for a ceasefire ‘within two hours’.

Washington was also said to have agreed to the Kremlin proposition that Kyiv cede the whole Donbas region after Putin presented faked pictures that made it appear Ukrainian lines there were about to collapse.

But the President hit back on Sunday, slamming ‘fake news’ as he described the Alaskan summit as a ‘great meeting’ and told the world to ‘STAY TUNED’ for ‘BIG PROGRESS ON RUSSIA’.

His special envoy, Steve Witkoff, also said the US delegation had forced Putin to accept ‘robust’, US backed, Nato-like security guarantees for Ukraine for the first time, which he described as ‘game-changing’.

Mr Zelensky has appealed to Sir Keir and other European leaders to join him for ‘moral support and solidarity’.

Those answering the call include Mr Macron, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, German chancellor Friedrich Merz, Finnish president Alexander Stubb, Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

Ahead of another dramatic day of global diplomacy over the future of Europe, No 10 said on Sunday that the PM ‘stands ready to support this next phase of further talks’.

Sir Keir will ‘reaffirm his backing for Ukraine will continue as long as it takes’, and ‘the path to peace cannot be decided without president Zelensky’.

Keen to keep Washington onside, Sir Keir also commended ‘President Trump’s efforts to end Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine’.

On Sunday, Mr Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, insisted that Putin was ‘the bad guy’ and should be treated as such during negotiations.

He said he knew Mr Trump liked to use a ‘velvet glove’ style in dealing with dictators, but he added: ‘The hammer needs to come and it needs to come immediately.’

Mr Pence told CNN that as well as meeting Mr Zelensky, Mr Trump should call for another sanctions bill against Russia to be passed ‘immediately’ in the Senate.

ADVERTISEMENT

He also gave Mr Trump credit for pursuing his earlier ceasefire deal despite ‘many voices in and around the administration that would have cut Ukraine loose months ago’.

All eyes will be on the Oval Office on Monday where Mr Trump will try to persuade Mr Zelensky to agree to meet Putin and ‘make a deal’.