Keir Starmer will hold talks with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni in Downing Street on Sunday before a major London defence summit aimed at securing “lasting and enforced” peace in Ukraine.
Fresh from his trip to see Donald Trump in the White House on Thursday, Starmer has headed back to London to host the defence summit, where more than a dozen world leaders will gather to discuss Ukraine.
The prime minister had invited France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Turkey, as well as Ukraine. After Starmer’s meeting with Trump, the leaders of the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Romania were added to the list of attenders.
The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the European Council president, António Costa, will also attend.
Starmer and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, both undertook trips to the US this week, with the European leaders trying to persuade Trump to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any negotiated peace.
The US president is resisting calls to fully commit US military support to guarantee any Ukraine peace deal, but has suggested that closer economic ties and an agreement on mineral access between Kyiv and Washington would, in effect, act as a security “backstop”.
Zelenskyy travelled to Washington on Friday to sign a critical minerals deal, and to push the president on providing security protections for Kyiv to deter Russia from launching another attack – if a peace agreement is signed.
A Downing Street spokesperson said on Friday that “the UK has made it clear that we’ll play our full part in ensuring a just and lasting peace deal on Ukraine’s terms, backed up by strong security guarantees”.
The spokesperson added: “Just this week we demonstrated our commitment to that confirming we’ll increase defence spending to 2.5% by 2027. But that peace deal has to come first and as you know the prime minister will meet President Zelensky before convening European leaders in London on Sunday to continue those discussions.
“The deal has to come first, but our teams are going to be talking about how we make sure that deal sticks and is lasting and enforced.”
Starmer’s trip to the US was regarded as having gone well, with Trump expressing warmth towards the UK prime minister and pleased by an invitation to visit the king.
During Sunday’s event, Starmer is expected to chair a pre-summit call with the Baltic countries – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – before hosting the conference of European leaders.
At the summit, the leaders will consider how to strengthen Ukraine’s position with military support and increased economic pressure on Russia.
The UK wants US military assets to provide surveillance, intelligence and – potentially – warplanes providing air cover to deter Vladimir Putin from launching another attempt to conquer his neighbour.
In Washington on Thursday, Trump said: “Well, there is a backstop. First, you have European countries, because they’re right there, we’re very far away, we have an ocean between us. But we want to make sure it works.”
He continued: “We are a backstop because we’ll be over there, we’ll be working in the country. ”
Starmer moved to increase defence spending to 3% of national income earlier this week, paying for it by cutting foreign aid. Other European leaders are also coming under pressure to raise defence spending, with Trump’s administration making clear that the US cannot be relied on to contribute as much in future.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, said it was a “generational moment for our continent” as she discussed security and defence with European finance leaders at the G20 this week.
Saying it was a “more dangerous world”, Reeves said the UK will “not hide from this reality” as the G20 talked about what could be done to boost defence across Europe.
“This is the moment for us all to step up and together with our European partners we will go further and faster on defence,” she added.
