Sir Keir Starmer will host a virtual meeting of the “coalition of the willing” nations on Saturday at the end of a week of intense diplomatic activity to find a peace deal in Ukraine.
The Prime Minister will lead the call with around 20 like-minded allies who have expressed an interest in contributing to or supporting a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine if a deal is reached to end the war with Russia.
Military chiefs from potential members of the coalition will meet in France this week, while talks between Ukraine and the US are taking place in Saudi Arabia.
Defence Secretary John Healey and Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin will both take part in talks in Paris (Jonathan Brady/PA)
Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin will join counterparts in Paris on Tuesday before Defence Secretary John Healey meets opposite numbers from France, Germany, Italy and Poland in the French capital on Wednesday.
The meeting of defence ministers will also be attended by representatives from Nato and the European Union, with Ukraine’s Rustem Umerov dialling in.
Foreign ministers from the G7 – including David Lammy and US counterpart Marco Rubio – will meet in Canada from Wednesday to Friday.
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The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “There was the meeting last week, there’s another meeting tomorrow, there’s a defence secretary-level meeting on Wednesday, there will be the leaders’ meeting on Saturday.
“Each of these meetings is obviously progressing the planning. I’m not going to get ahead of proposals being made public but obviously these discussions are ongoing, as you can see from these meetings.”
The talks involving the US and Ukraine on Tuesday come after Volodymyr Zelensky, Sir Keir and French president Emmanuel Macron agreed to work on peace proposals.
Sir Keir is also leading the push for what he called the “coalition of the willing” – nations prepared to offer troops and guarantees to deter Vladimir Putin’s Russia from breaking any peace deal.
Not all the nations involved are expected to commit to join a peacekeeping force, they could offer logistical help for troops in Ukraine or other forms of support.
But Sir Keir has stressed the need for Donald Trump’s US to provide a “backstop” security guarantee, a commitment to intervene if a European-led peacekeeping mission comes under threat.
Government insiders have warned of a “chicken and egg” situation where European and Commonwealth nations will not promise troops without US guarantees but Mr Trump will not make commitments unless Europe steps up to defend itself.
The UK’s national security adviser was in Kyiv for talks over the weekend with top officials ahead of the talks between the Ukrainian and American delegations.
Jonathan Powell met Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the president in Ukraine. In a post on X, Mr Yermak said that they “exchanged views on key issues on the path to achieving peace”.