Military planning for Ukraine, peace moves to the ‘operating phase’, says Starmer

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said that military planning to protect a possible cessation from Ukraine fire is moving to an “operational phase” after a virtual meeting with another 29 world leaders.

Military leaders will meet Thursday in the United Kingdom “to establish strong and robust plans to pass behind a peace agreement and guarantee the future security of Ukraine,” said Sir Keir.

The meeting follows Ukraine according to a high fire of 30 days after conversations with the United States. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he agrees with the idea, but established a series of previous peace conditions.

The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, who joined the meeting on Saturday, said that “active pressure is needed, not only conversations.”

“The world must understand that Russia is the only obstacle that avoids peace,” he said.

“The path to peace must begin unconditionally. If Russia does not want this, then a strong pressure should be applied until they do it. Moscow understands a language,” Zelensky added.

He urged European countries to produce their own weapons as soon as possible to speak with the United States and its president Donald Trump to reach an agreement faster through “complete sanctions, strong pressure and force Russia to make peace.”

In a speech after the video call, Sir Keir said “the world needs actions … not empty words and conditions.”

In a statement, he said that the “Dithhering and the delay of the Kremlin” on the proposal of Alto El Fuego and its continuous attacks against Ukraine “are completely directed against the declared of the declared of the peace of President Putin.”

The leaders agreed on Saturday that if Putin rejected a “high immediate and unconditional fire,” they would have to “increase the pressure … to convince him to go to the negotiating table,” said Sir Keir.

“To deliver this, we will accelerate our military support, we will adjust our sanctions to the income of Russia and continue to explore all the legal routes to ensure that Russia pays the damage it has done to Ukraine,” reads the statement.

Putin said Thursday that he supported the idea of ​​a high fire, but added “there are nuances” and made a list of questions about details, including if a high fire would allow Ukraine to rearm and who would monitor it.

The participants in Saturday’s call included NATO, the European Union, almost two dozen European countries, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Military bosses will meet this week to advance “practical plans” on how their military can support Ukraine, said Sir Keir.

“We will build the defenses and armed forces of Ukraine, and we will be ready to deploy as a ‘coalition of the provisions’ in case of a peace agreement, to help ensure Ukraine on earth, in the sea and in heaven,” said his statement.

Sir Keir presented the idea of ​​a “coalition of the provisions” to defend a high fire earlier this month, and on Saturday he said that the coalition had grown and includes the support of Japan and others.

The prime minister said that he is “ready and willing” to put the troops of the United Kingdom in Ukraine to help guarantee their safety as part of a peace agreement. He has asked other European countries to commit to concrete security guarantees, and said that a “support” of the United States is needed.

At a press conference after the summit, Zelensky said that some form of “boots in the floor” was necessary after the high fire, although he admitted that some were “skeptics.”

Finnish president Alexander Stubb said to BBC Sunday with Laura Kuessberg after the summit that “is still too early” to talk about putting troops on the ground as part of any security guarantee.

Stubb said Finland was willing to be part of the efforts to defend a peace agreement, but said: “It is too early to talk about boots on the ground because we do not have a stop the fire, we do not have a peace process. Once we have a clear plan, we begin to make the commitments.”

He said there were “from zero to 50 different ways in which they can help, boots on the ground are just one shape.”

Thousands of people have been killed since Russia launched a large -scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.