Keir Starmer arrives in Ukraine to satisfy Zelensky and signal ‘100-year safety partnership’ days earlier than Trump enters White House
Keir Starmer has arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced visit to shore up support for Ukraine after nearly three years of war, officials said this morning.
The Prime Minister is expected to sign a ‘landmark 100-year partnership to deepen security ties’ between the UK and Ukraine as he meets with President Volodymyr Zelensky, Downing Street said in a statement.
The visit comes at a pivotal time in the war, amid increasing Russian threats against Ukraine’s Western allies and ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump as U.S. President on Monday.
It marks Sir Keir’s first visit to the country since taking office last summer.
The Prime Minister was greeted at Kyiv railway station by the U.K. ambassador to Ukraine, Martin Harris, and Ukraine’s envoy to London, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
Starmer is due to announce another 40 million pounds for Ukraine’s post-war economic recovery, on top of the £12.8bn in military and civilian aid offered since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Keir Starmer arrives at Kyiv train station on January 16, 2025 in Kyiv
The British Prime Minister’s visit to Ukraine comes at a pivotal moment for Ukraine’s allies in the conflict against Russia, ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday
The Prime Minister is expected to sign a ‘landmark 100-year partnership to deepen security ties’ between the UK and Ukraine
Britain has also helped train more than 50,000 Ukrainian troops on British soil amid a gruelling defence against Russia’s war of attrition.
Sir Keir will be hoping to reassure President Zelensky that Ukraine still enjoys the support of its Western, liberal backers against the tyranny of a foreign invader.
But the fate of American support for Ukraine once Trump takes office on January 20 is less clear.
The president-elect has balked at the cost of U.S. aid to Kyiv, says he wants to bring the war to a swift end and is planning to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom he has long expressed admiration.
Kyiv’s allies have rushed to flood Ukraine with as much support as possible before Trump’s inauguration, with the aim of putting Ukraine in the strongest position possible for any future negotiations to end the war.
Zelenskyy has said that in any peace negotiation, Ukraine would need assurances about its future protection from its much bigger neighbor.
Britain says its 100-year pledge is part of that assurance, and will help ensure Ukraine is “never again vulnerable to the kind of brutality inflicted on it by Russia,” which seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and attempted a full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The deal commits the two sides to cooperate on defense – especially maritime security against Russian activity in the Batlic Sea, Black Sea and Sea of Azov – and on technology projects including drones, which have become vital weapons for both sides in the war. The treaty also includes a system to help track stolen Ukrainian grain exported by Russia from occupied parts of the country.
“Putin’s ambition to wrench Ukraine away from its closest partners has been a monumental strategic failure. Instead, we are closer than ever, and this partnership will take that friendship to the next level,” Starmer said ahead of the visit.
“This is not just about the here and now, it is also about an investment in our two countries for the next century, bringing together technology development, scientific advances and cultural exchanges, and harnessing the phenomenal innovation shown by Ukraine in recent years for generations to come.”
Zelenskyy says he and Starmer also will discuss a plan proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron that would see troops from France and other Western countries stationed in Ukraine to oversee a ceasefire agreement.
Zelenskyy has said any such proposal should go alongside a timeline for Ukraine to join NATO. The alliance’s 32 member countries say that Ukraine will join one day, but not until after the war. Trump has appeared to sympathize with Putin’s position that Ukraine should not be part of NATO.
As the grinding war nears the three-year mark, both Russia and Ukraine are pushing for battlefield gains ahead of possible peace talks. Ukraine has started a second offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, where it is struggling to hang onto a chunk of territory it captured last year, and has stepped up drone and missile attacks on weapons sites and fuel depots inside Russia.
Moscow is slowly taking territory at the cost of high casualties, along the 600-mile (1,000-kilometer) front line in eastern Ukraine and launching intense barrages at Ukraine’s energy system, seeking to deprive Ukrainians of heat and light in the depths of winter. A major Russian ballistic and cruise missile attack on regions across Ukraine on Wednesday, and compelling authorities to shut down the power grid in some areas.
