Vladimir Putin’s Russia is already “menacing Britain’s skies, waters, streets and national security,” Sir Keir Starmer has warned.
The Prime Minister stressed that failure to force the Russian president to end his war in Ukraine would be a “choke hold” on Europe’s future.
“We know some basics: Putin’s appetite for conflict and for chaos is already there, and it will only grow,” he said on a visit to Hull, East Yorkshire.
“And Russia is already menacing our skies, our waters, our streets and our national security.”
Sir Keir appeared to be referencing Russian military planes flying towards Britain, a suspected spy ship caught loitering over undersea infrastructure in UK waters, and attacks on Russians in Britain including the poisoning of ex-double agent Sergei Skripal with Novichok in Salisbury in March 2018, as well as the murder of former spy Alexander Litvinenko in November 2006.
The Prime Minister also stressed that Putin’s three-year war in Ukraine had impacted Britain and other countries, with prices being pushed up, particularly gas, and billions more now having to be spent on defence.
“I profoundly believe that if we don’t secure a just peace and a lasting peace, then that insecurity, which we’ve already felt, will continue,” he added.
“And that means, here, higher prices, higher bills, the cost-of-living crisis going on for even longer - if you like, a choke hold on our future, which will be much, much harder for us to tackle.”
Britain has led military and diplomatic support for Ukraine since Putin’s invasion in February 2022.
Sir Keir has also stressed that the Government is ready to send British troops to Ukraine as peace-keepers if the war ends.
He is to hold a second summit of the so-called “Coalition of the Willing”, virtually this time, on Saturday, on Europe stepping up its defences against Putin.
The PM’s words came as key figures in Donald Trump’s administration were reportedly arriving in Moscow for talks with Putin’s regime on the ceasefire plan backed by the US and Ukraine.
But Putin is said to have a “dilemma” over whether to accept it, given that his forces are gaining ground in eastern Ukraine and in recapturing a swathe of the Kursk region of Russia seized by Kyiv troops in a surprise attack last summer.
Trump, though, has threatened to hit Russia with punitive sanctions and tariffs if Putin refused to move towards peace.
The Kremlin has hinted that Putin and Trump may speak on Thursday, stressing the Russian president could be holding an international call.
Putin has set down a series of demands for a peace deal, including Kyiv abandon its ambition to join Nato and is rejecting peace-keepers from the military alliance being deployed in Ukraine.
Kyiv has rejected several of his demands including concessions of huge parts of Ukraine’s territory.
