Keir Starmer from the United Kingdom pushes Donald Trump for Ukraine Guarantees against Putin

By Danny Kemp and Peter HutchisonAFP

The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, will meet with Donald Trump.
Photo: AFP

The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, will meet with Donald Trump to defend a “support” of the United States to any Ukraine Ceasefire, insisting that it would be the only way to deter Vladimir Putin de Russia to invade again.

Starmer’s trip to the White House on Thursday (local time) is based on a visit by French president Emmanuel Macron, amid growing concerns in Europe that the US leader is about to sell kyiv in negotiations with Putin.

London and Paris are leading proposals to send a European Peace Maintenance Force to Ukraine if Trump’s surprise to pursue conversations directly with the president of Russia brings an agreement to end the war.

But they are asking for security guarantees of the United States in return, in the midst of spiral concerns in Europe that Trump is taking the side of Russia and will cut the transatlantic alliance of decades.

“The security guarantee must be sufficient to deter Putin,” Starmer told journalists on the plane to Washington.

“If there is a high fire without support, it will simply give you the opportunity to wait and return, because your ambition in relation to Ukraine is quite obvious.”

Europeans seek possible US contributions such as aerial coverage, intelligence and logistics to support any troop sent to monitor a high fire.

‘Compensation’

Trump has seemed great to provide US security, and the president has pressed for a long time for European nations to take more than the load to support Ukraine.

“Well, I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond. We are going to make Europe do that,” Trump told reporters while celebrating the first meeting of the cabinet of his second term on Wednesday.

A senior Trump administration official said the support was “obviously very high on the agenda of our European allies,” but said that ensuring a high fire was more important.

“The type of force depends a lot on the political settlement that is done to end war. And I think that compensation is part of what today’s leaders are going to discuss,” the official told reporters.

The Oval Office meeting promises to be a style clash between the modern Labor leader, a former human rights lawyer and the Republican tycoon.

Starmer, who will hold a joint press conference with the president of the United States, has been launched as a “bridge” between Trump and Europe in Ukraine.

The British prime minister also comes with a gift for Trump.

His announcement on Tuesday that the United Kingdom’s defense expense will increase to 2.5 percent by 2027 was particularly aimed at the US leader, which has regularly embedded European countries to pay more towards NATO.

“We are very satisfied with the announcement of Prime Minister Starmer,” said the senior US official.

‘Good boy’

Meanwhile, Starmer will expect to avoid radical tariffs that Trump has promised to slap the European Union.

The trade “will certainly be part of the conversation,” added the United States official.

But like Macron on Monday, he will have his work trimmed to persuade Trump in Ukraine.

Last week, Trump called Starmer a “very good guy”, but complained that he and Macron had not done “anything” to end the war in Ukraine.

The president of the United States surprised the allies when negotiations with Russia began, not including Ukraine or its European allies.

The concerns were deepened when Trump attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator” and echoed the Moscow conversation points blaming kyiv for Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

Despite that, there have been growing movement in recent days in an agreement to end more than three years of bloody struggle.

Zelensky will appear at the White House on Friday to sign an agreement that gives Washington access to the rare minerals of Ukraine, which Trump has demanded as a recovery of US military aid.

The Ukrainian president hopes that the agreement will provide a guarantee of the future US support.

Starmer then houses Zelensky, Macron and other European leaders in Britain on Sunday as the impulse grows.

In Moscow, Putin said Thursday that the initial conversations of Russia-United States “give some hope of solving” problems “such as the Ukraine conflict.

– AFP