London: World leaders who have backed an Anglo-French-led peacekeeping effort in Ukraine will take part in a virtual meeting on Saturday in a week of intense diplomatic activity to find a peace deal with an increasingly aggressive Russia.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer will host what he has called “a coalition of the willing” — a group of mainly European and Commonwealth countries willing to help secure a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow, which follow Ukraine’s bilateral talks with the United States in Saudi Arabia on a deal for mineral rights and a ceasefire.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.Credit: Getty Images
Downing Street on Monday said the exact participants had yet to be confirmed, but officials last week said that “about 20” countries, including Australia, were holding talks about how they might support Ukraine if fighting stops. They also could include the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, plus Canada, and possibly Spain, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands.
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, told reporters on the plane to Jeddah, where a high-level delegation of US officials will meet with Ukrainians on Tuesday flagged an American ban on sending weapons and intelligence could be lifted tomorrow if crunch talks go well.
Rubio said Washington needed to understand Kyiv’s position and have a general idea of what concessions they might make. Critics are asking how much the Trump administration is pressuring Russia to push President Vladimir Putin to compromise.
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“I think the notion of the pause in aid, broadly, is something I hope we can resolve. Obviously what happens tomorrow will be key to that,” Rubio said. “They have suffered greatly and their people have suffered greatly. And it’s hard in the aftermath of something like that to even talk about concessions, but that’s the only way this is going to end and prevent more suffering.”
President Volodomyr Zelensky posted on social media site X ahead of talks that Ukraine had been “seeking peace since the very first second of the war”, adding that Russia was the “only reason” the war continued.
“I am grateful to every unit and every brigade defending Ukraine’s positions, ensuring the destruction of the occupiers, and making every effort to provide our country with the strength needed to bring peace closer,” he said.
