Starmer hosts 26 leaders in group call: Putin will have to come to table, says UK PM

LONDON: UK premier Keir Starmer said the “ball was in Russia’s court” and that President Vladimir Putin would “sooner or later” have to “come to the table,” after a virtual summit on Saturday to drum up support for a coalition willing to protect any eventual ceasefire in Ukraine.

The British leader told some 26 fellow leaders as they joined the group call hosted by Downing Street that they should focus on how to strengthen Ukraine, protect any ceasefire and keep up the pressure on Moscow.

While Ukraine had shown it was the “party of peace” by agreeing to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, “Putin is the one trying to delay,” he said. “If Putin is serious about peace, I think it’s very simple, he has to stop his barbaric attacks on Ukraine and agree to a ceasefire, and the world is watching,” he added.

Military chiefs will now meet again on Thursday in the UK as the coalition moves into “the operational phase,” Starmer said after the talks. “The group that met this morning is a bigger group than we had two weeks ago, there is a stronger collective resolve and new commitments were put on the table this morning,” he added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia wanted to achieve a “stronger position” militarily ahead of any ceasefire, more than three years since it invaded his country. “They want to improve their situation on the battlefield,” Zelensky told a Kyiv press conference. The ceasefire proposal by Trump’s team comes as Russia has momentum in many areas of the front in Ukraine. The Russian leader did not commit to an immediate ceasefire proposed by the US, instead listing a string of demands. But Zelensky said that Putin is “lying about how a ceasefire is supposedly too complicated.”

EU chief European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a message on X that Russia has to show “it is willing to support a ceasefire leading to a just and lasting peace”.