UK ready to send troops to Ukraine as Europe leaders hold war talks

PARIS: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was prepared to deploy troops to Ukraine if needed, hours before European leaders meet in Paris on Monday to address Washington’s shock policy shift on the war.

US President Donald Trump sidelined Kyiv and its European backers last week by calling his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to talk about beginning negotiations to end the conflict.

With Trump saying he could meet Putin “very soon”, European leaders are hastening to Paris for top-level talks on the continent’s security.

Describing a “once-in-a-generation moment”, Starmer said he was willing to put “our own troops on the ground if necessary”.

“Any role in helping to guarantee Ukraine’s security is helping to guarantee the security of our continent, and the security of this country,” he wrote in the Daily Telegraph late Sunday.

Trump has said he believes Putin genuinely wants to stop fighting in Ukraine, while his administration has warned its NATO allies Europe will no longer be its top security priority.

US defence chief Pete Hegseth also appeared to rule out Ukraine joining NATO or retaking all of its territory lost since 2014.

Leaders from the UK, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark are expected at the Paris meeting, which falls ahead of the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Antonio Costa, who heads the European Council representing the European Union’s 27 nations, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, and NATO secretary general Mark Rutte will also be present.

The French presidency said the meeting would address “the situation in Ukraine” and “security in Europe”.

“Because of the acceleration of the Ukrainian issue, and as a result of what US leaders are saying, there is a need for Europeans to do more, better and in a coherent way, for our collective security,” an adviser from President Emmanuel Macron’s office said.

The Kremlin has pushed for negotiations between US and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia — expected in the coming days — to discuss not just the Ukraine conflict but also broader European security.

European nations fear that Putin could reiterate demands he made prior to the 2022 invasion towards limiting NATO forces in eastern Europe and US involvement on the continent.

‘Not a one-meeting thing’

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday however sought to play down expectations of any breakthrough at upcoming talks with Russian officials.

“A process towards peace is not a one-meeting thing,” he told the CBS network.

“Nothing’s been finalised yet,” he said, adding that the aim was to seek an opening for a broader conversation that “would include Ukraine and would involve the end of the war”.

Rubio is heading to Saudi Arabia on Monday, as part of a Middle East tour which he started this weekend in Israel.

Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has said Europe would not be directly involved in talks on Ukraine, though it would still have “input”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had on Saturday called for the creation of a European army, arguing the continent could no longer count on Washington.

Meeting in Paris last week, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Spain insisted that any “just and lasting peace” deal in Ukraine could not be achieved without the involvement of Kyiv and its European partners.