Keir Starmer has warned Vladimir Putin to stop playing games over a ceasefire as he gathers allies to hammer out peacekeeping plans.
Some 25 countries will join a call led by the Prime Minister from Downing Street on Saturday to discuss forming a “coalition of the willing” to shore up peace in Ukraine. Mr Starmer will say allies need to turn the screws on Russia’s economy and be prepared to support long term peace in Ukraine.
Leaders from European countries, the EU Commission, NATO, Canada, Ukraine, Australia and New Zealand are expected to join the virtual summit which follows days of frantic diplomacy to secure a peace deal. During the call, leaders will receive updates on the aid they could offer to deter Russia from breaching a ceasefire ahead of a military planning session next week.
Talks between the US and Ukraine this week resulted in a proposal for a 30-day truce, with Donald Trump sending envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow to discuss the plans. But the Kremlin has held out on agreeing, with Mr Putin suggesting “questions” remain about the nature of a truce.
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UKRAINE’S 93RD MECHANIZED BRIGADE PRESS SERVICE HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Ahead of the summit, Mr Starmer said: “We can’t allow President Putin to play games with President Trump’s deal. The Kremlin’s complete disregard for President Trump’s ceasefire proposal only serves to demonstrate that Putin is not serious about peace.
“If Russia finally comes to the table, then we must be ready to monitor a ceasefire to ensure it is a serious, and enduring peace, if they don’t, then we need to strain every sinew to ramp up economic pressure on Russia to secure an end to this war.”
He accused the Russian President of trying to delay peace – and said there must be action not “empty words and pointless conditions”. The PM added: “My message to the Kremlin could not be clearer: stop the barbaric attacks on Ukraine, once and for all, and agree to a ceasefire now. Until then we will keep working around the clock to deliver peace.”
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said G7 allies were united in calling for a ceasefire with “no conditions” at a summit in Canada.
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AP)
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Putin was trying to sabotage diplomacy “by setting extremely difficult and unacceptable conditions right from the start even before a ceasefire”.
He said: “I strongly urge everyone who can influence Russia, especially the United States, to take strong steps that can help. Pressure must be applied to the one who does not want to stop the war. Pressure must be put on Russia.”
Mr Trump said on Friday that the discussions with Russia had been “very good and productive”. In a post on TruthSocial, he said “there is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end”.
On Friday Russian troops launched a ‘double-tap’ explosive drone onslaught on a Ukrainian hospital, setting off a deadly 1,500 square yard inferno on its roof. The war-crime attack on civilian patients failed to kill anyone as everybody had been escorted into shelters moments before two drones hit, 40 minutes apart.
It happened in the early hours of Friday and destroyed a hospital in the village of Zolochiv, Kharkiv region, leaving a 33 year-old medic injured. Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, said: “The drone strike ignited the roof. Forty minutes later, Russia launched a second attack with two more drones.”
The attack came as both sides stepped up missile exchanges with peace talks underway, involving the US and other NATO nations. Ukraine boasted on Friday it had dropped a drone “virtually in front of Putin’s nose – 1,312 feet from his route from Novo-Ogaryovo [his official residence outside Moscow] to the Kremlin.” The claim was not attributed to a named official but was leaked by Kyiv’s SBU secret service.
Other SBU secret service drones hit “a missile depot for the S-300/S-400 air defence systems on Russian territory”, reported pro-Volodymyr Zelensky Telegram channel Pravda Gerashchenko.
The rare drone strikes penetrating Moscow’s defences were “less than 400 meters from Kutuzovsky Prospekt, one and a quarter miles from the Russian Foreign Ministry building, and two and a half miles from the Kremlin,” according to a statement. Early in the war, Ukraine claimed to have hit the Kremlin with a strike.