Ahead of his talks at the White House on Thursday, Sir Keir said Mr Trump can be trusted and understands that Russian President Mr Putin started the war in Ukraine.
But Sir Keir said it was clear that Russian president Mr Putin was “the aggressor” – and that there were “no issues” with Mr Trump on that.
Setting out his call for US commitments to Ukraine after a peace deal, Sir Keir said: “The reason I say the backstop is so important is that the security guarantee has to be sufficient to deter Putin from coming again.”.
Sir Keir wants to act as a bridge between the US and European continental allies, and said he had been having “really intense discussions with our European partners, with Nato, with Ukraine, and obviously with US teams as well”.
Sir Keir Starmer will push a reluctant Donald Trump to provide a US “backstop” to prevent Vladimir Putin launching a fresh assault on Ukraine after any peace deal.
