Ukraine Russia war latest: Starmer says Europe at crossroads and announces ‘coalition of willing’ allies at EU summit – UK Times

Whatever the French and British-led multinational proposals are, they will have to avoid sliding into the death trap of a ceasefire.

Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said that some European leaders had privately set out new plans on defence spending during a meeting in London, but he declined to give details, saying it was for individual leaders to set them out.

“Today at the table I heard new announcements, and I’m not going to announce them to you, because they should do this. But this was very good news that more European countries will ramp up defence spending,” Rutte told reporters outside the meeting yesterday.

Several European leaders said they must increase defence spending – something that could help bring Donald Trump on side to offer a US security guarantee in the event of peace.

“After a long time of underinvestment, it is now of utmost importance to step up the defence investment for a prolonged period of time,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, told reporters.

Europe needs to turn “Ukraine into a steel porcupine that is indigestible for potential invaders,” she said.

Volodymyr Zelensky said after the meeting that he left London with “Europe’s clear support” and readiness to cooperate.

“There will be diplomacy for the sake of peace,” he said in his nightly video address. “And for the sake of us all being together – Ukraine, all of Europe and definitely, definitely America.”

Earlier, Mr Zelensky told reporters that Ukraine would not cede any territory to Russia as part of a peace agreement and said he was still willing to sign a minerals deal with the United States.

The Ukrainian war-time president said he believed he could salvage his relationship with Donald Trump after Friday’s shouting match, but that talks would have to take place behind closed doors.

“The format of what happened, I don’t think it brought something positive or additional to us as partners,” he said.

Before arriving in London, French president Emmanuel Macron suggested in an interview with a French newspaper that he and prime minister Keir Starmer are proposing a “truce in the air, on the seas and energy infrastructures” that would last a month.

There would be no European troops in the coming weeks and troops would only be deployed on the ground at a later stage, he said.

The question, Mr Macron said, is “how we use this time to try and get an accessible truce, with negotiations that will take several weeks and then, once peace is signed, a deployment”.