LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said Russian President Vladimir Putin will eventually have to negotiate, as he urged world leaders in a virtual summit to step up support for Ukraine and maintain pressure on Moscow.
The British leader told around 26 fellow leaders in a group call he hosted that they should focus on strengthening Ukraine, protecting any ceasefire, and maintaining pressure on Moscow.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had, he said, “shown once again, and beyond any doubt, that Ukraine is the party of peace” by accepting a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.
“But Putin is trying to delay—saying there must be a painstaking study before a ceasefire can take place,” he added.
And he insisted: “Sooner or later, Putin will have to come to the table.”
Military chiefs will meet again on Thursday in the UK as the coalition moves into the operational phase, he added.
“The group that met this morning is a bigger group than we had two weeks ago, there is a stronger collective resolve, and new commitments were put on the table this morning,” he said.
Diplomatic Pressure on Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia aimed to gain a “stronger position” militarily ahead of any ceasefire, more than three years since it invaded his country.
“They want to improve their situation on the battlefield,” Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv.
The ceasefire proposal by Trump’s team comes as Russia has the upper hand in several areas along the front in Ukraine.
The Russian leader did not commit to an immediate ceasefire proposed by the US, instead setting conditions.
But Zelensky insisted that Putin was “lying about how a ceasefire is supposedly too complicated.”
French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday called for joint US and European pressure on Russia to accept the proposed ceasefire.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a message on X that Russia must show “it is willing to support a ceasefire leading to a just and lasting peace.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday he was “cautiously optimistic” about reaching a truce, but much more work was needed.
Overnight fighting continued, with Russia claiming it had taken two more villages in its Kursk border region, where it has launched an offensive to regain seized territory.
Moscow has pushed this week to retake a large part of the land that Ukraine originally captured in western Kursk.
Russia’s defence ministry said troops had taken control of the villages of Zaoleshenka and Rubanshchina—north and west of the town of Sudzha, the main town that Moscow reclaimed this week.
‘Stop the Violence’
Kyiv said its air force had overnight downed 130 Iranian-made Russian-launched Shahed drones over 14 regions of the country.
Starmer and Macron have been leading efforts to assemble a so-called “coalition of the willing” ever since Trump opened direct negotiations with Moscow last month.
They argue the group is necessary—along with US support—to provide Ukraine with security guarantees by deterring Putin from violating any ceasefire.
Starmer and Macron have said they are willing to put British and French troops on the ground in Ukraine, though it remains unclear whether other countries are prepared to do the same.
Russia, earlier this week, again rejected the idea of foreign troops acting as peacekeepers in Ukraine.
But Macron said on Saturday: “If Ukraine asks allied forces to be on its territory, it is not up to Russia to accept or not.”
Starmer has said he welcomes any offers of support for the coalition, raising the prospect that some countries could contribute logistics or surveillance.
However, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reiterated after the call that Italy’s “participation in a possible military force on the ground is not envisaged.”
US President Donald Trump on Saturday appointed Keith Kellogg as special envoy to Ukraine.
A former national security adviser during Trump’s first term, Kellogg had previously been described as a special envoy for both Ukraine and Russia.
However, he was excluded from recent talks in Saudi Arabia on ending the war, with NBC News in the United States citing a senior Russian official who said that Putin considered him too pro-Ukraine.
