Crunch talks have begun in Saudi Arabia as top officials from the US and Ukraine are preparing to hash out a way of finally bringing the war to an end in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin has laid out the three things that would see him pull back his troops from Ukraine.
Senior US and Ukrainian officials are getting ready to sit down in Saudi Arabia for talks centred on bringing the war to a halt three years after Putin first ordered Russian boots on Ukrainian soil. President Volodymyr Zelensky has sent his chief of staff Andriy Yermak to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Yermak says that Ukraine is “ready to do everything to achieve peace”. But tyrant Putin has “made deliberately maximalist demands” in the lead up to the negotiations, it’s been claimed.
Citing western security officials, the feeling is that “there is no indication Putin is willing to compromise on any of his goals”, and happy to continue fighting – throwing more and more Russian citizens into the meat grinder – if “he does not get what he wants”.
Putin has demanded Ukraine “must formally commit to neutrality, abandon any ambition to join NATO, demilitarise and recognise Russian claims to annexed territory”, Bloomberg reports. Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has already “ruled out European peacekeepers” being sent in to keep the situation under control.
If these claims are true, Putin may have hoodwinked US leader President Trump into thinking he wanted peace, and that Ukraine was the warmongering state, at their meeting earlier this year.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told US president Donald Trump he wanted the talks to have a “positive outcome” that would see military aid and intelligence-sharing resume when the pair spoke on Monday. The US leader paused the supply of weapons and crucial information for Kyiv’s war effort following his public spat with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Meanwhile, military chiefs from potential members of the so-called “coalition of the willing” will meet in Paris, with French officials indicating around 30 countries could take part. Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin will attend for the UK before Defence Secretary John Healey meets opposite numbers from France, Germany, Italy and Poland in the French capital on Wednesday.
The PM is meeting ministers for Cabinet on Tuesday before leading a call with like-minded allies from the “coalition of the willing” on Saturday. The call will involve leaders who have expressed an interest in contributing to or supporting a peacekeeping mission to deter Russia’s Vladimir Putin from launching a future attempt to conquer Ukraine if a deal to end the conflict is reached.
The meeting of defence ministers will also be attended by representatives from Nato and the European Union, with Ukraine’s Rustem Umerov dialling in. Not all the nations involved in the “coalition of the willing” are expected to commit to join a peacekeeping force, although they could offer logistical help for troops in Ukraine or other forms of support.
The PM has stressed the need for Mr Trump’s US to provide a “backstop” security guarantee, a commitment to intervene if a European-led peacekeeping mission comes under threat. Hours before talks were due to begin, Russia’s defence ministry said it had shot down 337 drones that had targeted more than 10 regions, including the capital city, in what appears to be the largest Ukrainian drone attack of the war.
Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyov said one person had been killed and three injured as a result of the attack, which also damaged seven apartment buildings in Ramensky, one of the capital’s south-eastern suburbs.
