Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Thursday said any eventual peace deal to end Russia’s three-year-old war against Ukraine must not end up providing any sort of windfall for Moscow as he met with President Donald Trump at the White House.
Speaking during a joint press conference alongside Trump in the East Room following a bilateral meeting between the two leaders, Starmer recalled the Anglo-American alliance that brought about victory in Europe to end the Second World War and said he welcomed what he described as Trump’s “deep and personal commitment to bring peace and to stop the killing” in Ukraine.
The Prime Minister’s readiness to put British troops in the ground and his description of Russia as an aggressor nation stood in stark contrast to the attitude expressed by Trump, who earlier in the day said during an Oval Office sit-down alongside Starmer that he trusts Putin to honor any eventual deal.
Starmer also said he and Trump had talked about plans “to reach a peace that is tough and fair, that Ukraine will help shape, that's backed by strength,” that would have the effect of stopping Russian president Vladimir Putin from “coming back for more” Ukrainian territory in the future.
“That's what we must do now, because it can't be peace that rewards the aggressor or that gives encouragement to regimes like Iran,” he said, adding later that both he and Trump agree that history “must be on the side of the peacemaker, not the invader.”.
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