LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced billions in support for Ukraine on Sunday following a summit with European leaders, just days after President Donald Trump berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.
Starmer announced a loan of 2.2 billion British pounds ($2.8 billion) to support Ukraine, funded through the freezing of Russian assets passed on Saturday. He also highlighted a new deal that would allow Ukraine to use 1.6 billion pounds ($2 billion) in export finance to buy missiles made in Northern Ireland.
Starmer vowed to bolster Ukraine to allow the nation to negotiate a peace agreement from a position of power.
“We have to learn from the mistakes of the past,” Starmer said at a news conference. “We cannot accept a weak deal like Minsk, which Russia can break with ease. Instead any deal must be backed with strength. Every nation must contribute to that in the best way that it can.”
The Minsk agreements are a set of deals aimed at ending the fighting between Ukrainian armed forces and Russian separatists. Zelenskyy also referenced the weakness of the Minsk agreements during his tense visit to the Oval Office last week.
After the announcement, Zelenskyy said he sees unity, clear support and willingness to cooperate from Europe.
"Everyone is united on the main issue — for peace to be real, we need real security guarantees," Zelenskyy said in a post on X. "And this is the position of all of Europe — the entire continent. The United Kingdom, the European Union, Türkiye."
Backing of any peace deal would include U.S. security guarantees, according to Starmer. The British premier rejected a characterization posed by a reporter that the U.S. was an “unreliable ally.”
“The discussions we’ve had today, particularly the coalition of the willing, is on the basis that this is a plan we will work on with the U.S. and that it will have U.S. backing,” Starmer said, adding that he spoke to Trump Saturday night.
Leaders must work to secure more support for Ukraine, because while the Russians talk of peace, they are “continuing their relentless aggression,” Starmer said Sunday in his opening remarks of the summit.
“Getting a good outcome for Ukraine is not just a matter of right and wrong. It’s vital for the security of every nation here,” Starmer said.
Russia’s top diplomat, meanwhile, praised what he called Trump’s “common sense” approach to ending a war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, and accused European countries of trying to prolong the conflict.
With many of America’s once staunch allies now uncertain where they stand with the Trump administration, leaders and officials from more than a dozen countries attended the high-level meeting at Lancaster House, a 200-year-old mansion near Buckingham Palace.
Starmer gave Zelenskyy a warm hug and a handshake outside his home at No. 10 Downing St. on Saturday and said he was determined to end the war in Ukraine, where Russian forces control nearly one-fifth of the country.
The Ukrainian leader flew to the U.K. after his extraordinary encounter on Friday with Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Zelenskyy was at the White House to sign a deal with Trump that would grant the U.S. access to rare earths and other critical minerals in Ukraine after the war with Russia ends.
Trump has said the deal with the U.S. would serve as a security guarantee for Ukraine against a future Russian invasion like the one that started the war in February 2022. The invasion of Ukraine precipitated the most important confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cold War.
But the deal was never signed and remains in limbo after Zelenskyy was asked to leave the White House when the meeting devolved into an argument in front of reporters.
The encounter left Trump angry and publicly questioning whether his Ukrainian counterpart wants to negotiate an end to the war.
Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Starmer said the encounter made him feel “uncomfortable.” But he said the “important thing is how to react to that. There are a number of different routes people could go down. One is to ramp up the rhetoric as to how outraged we all are or not.”
Starmer added that he believed Trump was motivated by a “lasting peace” and the U.K. would work with France and Ukraine to present a ceasefire plan to the U.S.
Zelenskyy has since thanked Trump for hosting him and Americans for supporting Ukraine.
“Of course, we understand the importance of America, and we are grateful for all the support we’ve received from the United States. There has not been a day when we haven’t felt gratitude,” Zelenskyy said in the X post Sunday. “It’s gratitude for the preservation of our independence — our resilience in Ukraine is based on what our partners are doing for us — and for their own security.”
On Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasized his country’s growing common ground with Trump.
“Donald Trump is a pragmatist,” Lavrov told the Russian military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, according to a transcript released by the Foreign Ministry. “His slogan is common sense. It means, as everyone can see, a shift to a different way of doing things.”
“But the goal is still MAGA (Make America Great Again),” Lavrov said. “This gives a lively, human character to politics. That’s why it’s interesting to work with him.”
