Starmer calls for deadline on Ukraine peace talks to stop Putin’s ‘games’

Vladimir Putin must be given a deadline to make progress on a Ukraine ceasefire, Sir Keir Starmer said as European allies stepped up plans to deploy troops to secure any peace deal.

The Prime Minister said the Russian president was “playing games” and attempting to drag the Donald Trump-initiated process out to allow his forces time to continue their assaults on Ukraine.

Following talks in Paris, Sir Keir said top brass from the UK, France and Germany would head to Ukraine for talks with Kyiv’s military chiefs to discuss plans for a force to deter Mr Putin from attacking again if there is a deal to bring the war to an end.

And the so-called “coalition of the willing” meeting in Paris had agreed there should be no easing of sanctions against Russia.

The Prime Minister said the allies had agreed “we should be setting a framework and a deadline of delivering real progress, and that we should hold them to that deadline”.

He said: “We’ve agreed that we must go further now to support the peace process, support Ukraine and increase the pressure on Russia to get serious.

Although he declined to name a hard deadline, Sir Keir added that he wanted to see progress “in days and weeks, not months and months”.

The meeting in Paris comes after Ukraine and Russia agreed to pause hostilities in the Black Sea following talks with the US in Saudi Arabia.

In statements published by the White House, the Trump administration also appeared to signal its intention to ease sanctions on Russian agricultural goods and improve Moscow’s access to maritime insurance, ports and payment systems as part of the deal.

But Ukraine and its European allies have firmly pushed back against any suggestion of lifting sanctions, agreeing instead to increase measures to bring Russia to the negotiating table.

Sir Keir said there had been “complete clarity that now is not the time for lifting of sanctions”, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said sanctions were “one of the few real tools the world has to pressure Russia into serious talks”.

Thursday’s meeting also saw Sir Keir update the group of 30 nations, plus Nato and the EU, with the outcomes of a series of military planning talks for a possible peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

Officials and defence chiefs have been holding talks at London’s Northwood military headquarters throughout the week, drawing up a strategy to support Kyiv and deter future aggression from Moscow.

They are playing games, and they’re playing for time

After the meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the prospect of a “reassurance force” of European troops acting as a “second security guarantee” in the event of a deal.

He told a press conference: “These reassurance forces were what was proposed by the French and British not to keep the peace… it’s not about monitoring the forces on the contact line, it’s not a force that will replace or substitute for the Ukrainian army.”

He acknowledged that Vladimir Putin has not agreed to such a plan but “it’s not up to Russia what happens on Ukrainian soil”.

“So there will be a reassurance force bringing together several European forces and it will be deployed,” he said.

Meanwhile, fighting continues in Ukraine with both sides accusing each other of breaking the terms of a tentative US-backed agreement to pause strikes on energy infrastructure.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed Ukrainian drone attacks hit power facilities in the Bryansk and Kursk regions this week, which Ukraine dismissed as Kremlin disinformation aimed at justifying continued hostilities.

Ukrainian officials have said Moscow is “lying” about observing a ceasefire on energy infrastructure and has carried out eight confirmed hits on power sites.

On Thursday, Mr Zelensky also warned that Russia was preparing “new offensives” against the Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine, while “dragging out the talks and trying to get the US stuck in endless, pointless discussions about fake ‘conditions’ just to buy time and then try to grab more land.”

Sir Keir added that the “coalition of the willing” had agreed that Russia was “filibustering”, saying: “They are playing games, and they’re playing for time.

“It is a classic from the Putin playbook. But we can’t let them drag this out while they continue prosecuting their illegal invasion.”