British personnel ready to arrive in Ukraine once fighting on hold
After talking for nearly three hours, they refused to answer questions from reporters, but both made statements, with Mr Trump saying 'some great progress' was made with 'many points' agreed to, and 'very few' remaining.
The UK Government earlier this summer backed international efforts to set up a 'Multinational Force Ukraine', a military plan to bolster Ukraine's defences once the conflict eases, in a bid to ward off future Russian aggression.
'Planning has continued on an enduring basis to ensure that a force can deploy in the days following the cessation of hostilities,' an MoD spokesperson said.
According to the Government, 'along with securing Ukraine's skies and supporting safer seas, the force is expected to regenerate land forces by providing logistics, armaments, and training expertise'.
It 'will strengthen Ukraine's path to peace and stability by supporting the regeneration of Ukraine's own forces', the spokesperson added.
Early designs for the Multinational Force Ukraine were originally drafted last month, after military chiefs met in Paris to agree a strategy and co-ordinate plans with the EU, Nato, the US and more than 200 planners.
Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
On the day of negotiations, the Russians are killing as well. And that speaks volumes. Recently, weʼve discussed with the U.S. and Europeans what can truly work. Everyone needs a just end to the war. Ukraine is ready to work as productively as possible to bring the war to an end,… pic.twitter.com/tmN8F4jDzl
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 15, 2025
Moments before Mr Trump touched down in Anchorage, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on X that Saturday 'will start early for everyone in Europe' as leaders react to the Alaska summit.
'We continue co-ordinating with our partners in Europe,' Mr Zelensky said, and added: 'Russia must end the war that it itself started and has been dragging out for years.
'The killings must stop. A meeting of leaders is needed – at the very least, Ukraine, America, and the Russian side – and it is precisely in such a format that effective decisions are possible.'
When he addressed the press, Mr Putin said he greeted Mr Trump on the tarmac as 'dear neighbour' and added: 'Our countries, though separated by the oceans, are close neighbours.'
According to a translation carried by broadcasters, he claimed the 'situation in Ukraine has to do with fundamental threats to our security'.
Stood next to Mr Putin in front of the words 'Pursuing Peace', Mr Trump said: 'We haven't quite got there but we've made some headway.'
He stressed 'there's no deal until there's a deal' and added: 'I will call up Nato in a little while.
'I will call up the various people that I think are appropriate, and I'll of course call up President Zelensky and tell him about today's meeting.'
Concluding their exchange, the US president said: 'We'll speak to you very soon and probably see you again very soon.
'Thank you very much, Vladimir.'
Mr Putin replied: 'Next time, in Moscow.'
Mr Trump said: 'That's an interesting one. I'll get a little heat for that one.
'I could see it possibly happening.'
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Spectator
27 minutes ago
- Spectator
Unesco status is killing Bath
Last month, the Trump administration announced that the United States would once again withdraw from Unesco, the Paris-based UN cultural agency responsible for World Heritage Sites, education initiatives, and cultural programmes worldwide. The official line? Unesco promotes 'woke, divisive cultural and social causes' and its 'globalist, ideological agenda' clashes with America First policy. Predictably, the Trump administration framed it as a culture-war grievance. But, set aside the politics, and it soon becomes clear that Trump might not be entirely wrong. Unesco – founded in 1945 with the lofty mission of promoting peace and global cooperation through culture, education, and science – has devolved into something far less edifying. Once led by artists, architects, and scholars, Unesco's World Heritage Committee has become the Fifa of culture: a fiefdom of bureaucrats, political journeymen and international grifters who drift between departments, NGOs and consultancies with no accountability, while the list of sites has ballooned to 1,248. Its $1.5 billion annual budget fuels a self-perpetuating treadmill of capacity-building workshops, unread reports and relentless reputation polishing. The consequences are not merely abstract for Bath, a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1987. Some World Heritage Sites are a single chapel, a medieval bridge, or a protected ruin; Bath's listing covers the entire city – all 94,000 residents, its suburban sprawl, its industrial remnants, and its everyday working streets. The designation treats the Georgian crescents and Roman baths as inseparable from the supermarkets, car parks, and 1970s infill, meaning almost any change anywhere must be weighed against the city's 'Outstanding Universal Value.' At the same time, the city is grappling with a record housing crisis: house prices are more than 13 times annual earnings, social housing demand is soaring, and temporary accommodation has reached a 20-year high. Homelessness services like Julian House's Manvers Street hostel operate far beyond capacity, providing nearly 97,000 bed spaces last year alone while struggling to secure their own roof. But Bath's heritage status means it is almost impossible to get anything built. Although Unesco status carries no direct legal force in the UK, it is woven into planning policy through the Bath and North East Somerset Local Plan, which bars development deemed harmful to the 'qualities justifying the inscription' or its setting. In practice, this gives opponents of change a powerful rhetorical weapon: they need only invoke 'Outstanding Universal Value' to wrap their case in the prestige of an international mandate. The result is a permanent, low-level threat – that almost any proposal, however modest, might be cast as an affront to world heritage and fought on those grounds. In 2024, residents were warned that the city's Unesco status was 'at risk' after the council approved the replacement of former industrial units on Wells Road with 77 'co-living' apartments. The planning committee split four to four, with the chair casting the tiebreaker vote in favour. Councillors raised concerns about the building's bulk and potential 'cumulative impact' on the World Heritage Site, with one declaring the city was 'sailing close to the wind with Unesco.' It is extraordinary: a city struggling to house its own people, yet officials can menace its international status over a modest block of flats. Meanwhile, residents in nearby Saltford – whose own Grade II* Saltford Manor dates to the 12th century and is thought to be Britain's oldest continuously inhabited house – watch as Bath's tight planning restrictions push the housing burden outwards. With 1,300 new homes proposed for its green belt, the village faces development on a scale it can't sustain, without the infrastructure or political protection to resist it. Phil Harding, head of the Saltford Environmental Group and a resident for more than 30 years, recently made headlines when he spoke out about the impact of Bath's World Heritage status on neighbouring communities. 'I'm not against new housing, I'm against putting housing in the wrong place,' he says. Bath, he notes, is already a fantastic city that draws tourists in its own right, and Unesco status 'makes no difference.' The real problem, he adds, is that World Heritage designation makes it 'incredibly hard to build in Bath,' pushing development into nearby villages. Much of the employment for new arrivals will still be in Bath, leaving Saltford to shoulder the burden – green belt land lost, congestion rising, local services stretched – without enjoying the benefits. 'Bath doesn't need World Heritage Status,' he concludes. 'It distorts planning priorities, forcing the city to preserve appearances while shifting the real costs onto neighbouring communities.' It may sound unthinkable, but losing that status is hardly fatal. Liverpool provides the example: once celebrated for its maritime mercantile cityscape, it was stripped of Unesco recognition in 2021 after the agency judged that recent and planned developments had caused an 'irreversible loss' of the site's Outstanding Universal Value. Among the contested projects was Everton FC's new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, which required filling in part of the historic dock to accommodate a 52,000-seat arena. Even the Guardian acknowledged it as 'the most striking, ambitious addition to the waterfront since the Three Graces were built in the early 1900s.' The £800 million stadium formed part of a broader £1.3 billion regeneration plan, projected to create over 15,000 jobs and attract more than 1.4 million visitors annually. The city did not crumble: regeneration pressed ahead, docks were revitalised, neighbourhoods transformed and tourism continued to flourish. The lesson is plain – Unesco's imprimatur is not the secret ingredient of urban vitality, and its objections can just as easily hinder development as they can protect it. If Unesco were merely symbolic, that would be one thing. But the status is far from meaningless: it exerts moral and political pressure, informs planning guidance, and lends weight to the opinions of advisory bodies like Historic England. For Bath, this translates into a city where development proposals are scrutinised through the lens of 'Outstanding Universal Value,' with councillors warned that new flats or infrastructure might unsettle international sensibilities. The result is a city frozen in amber, preserved more for the approval of tourists rather than for the people who actually live and work there. So when the America First brigade lashes out at Unesco, it is tempting to roll our eyes. But there is a logic to that disdain. World Heritage labels are increasingly badges for the international jet set, not the local people. The US may be leaving for its own vanity, but the reasoning – that Unesco is corrupt, politicised, and more interested in theatre than preservation – hits the mark. For cities like Bath, the real question isn't whether Unesco might disapprove, but why on earth they should care.
New Statesman
27 minutes ago
- New Statesman
What JD Vance was really doing in Britain this week
Photo byJD Vance is the most underestimated man in Washington. Memes of him with a cartoonishly fat face populate the internet. A recent South Park episode had Donald Trump shouting at a tiny Vance 'Will you get out of here?!' and kicking him off screen. The news that he was turned away from The Bull pub in Oxfordshire this week following a staff mutiny was gleefully reported by American media. Democrats sneer that he is nothing more than a drooling dauphin, simpering and slavish. Vance is certainly going along with Trump's conceits in order to inherit the throne. But this narrative misses that JD Vance is already the prince of the Western right. His trip to England was the surest proof yet that Vance's constituency isn't just to be found in Washington or Ohio – but across the influencers and intellectuals of a tightly bound and unusually loyal transnational reactionary movement. This summer Vance held court in an English 18th-century manor, a forward operating base in his campaign to Maga-ify the British right. Part of his itinerary was set up by the slick Cambridge theologian James Orr and the podcasting former chancellor George Osborne. The less well-known Orr used to do Jordan Peterson's scheduling during his tours of British university campuses. Orr also serves as a Vance interpreter, having been quoted in the Times that Vance has a 'special concern' for the UK. Vance's criticism of the British government, particularly over its backsliding on free speech, seems grounded in a paternal feeling for America's errant ward. For these precious weeks Vance has come in-person, here to help guide the country onto stronger ground. The line between what counts as an official trip and a family holiday has blurred under Trump's administration. One of Vance's first 'official' trips was to the Vatican – where Vance, a Catholic convert, met Pope Francis – and to India with his family, the birthplace of his wife's parents. Meanwhile, the president invites world leaders to attend to him at his Scottish golf course. Informality takes precedence over diplomatic protocol. But while Trump invited Keir Starmer and Ursula Von der Leyen to Turnberry, Vance can look to the future. His guestlist showed he is interested in a new generation, one which will be ushered in under his tutelage. On 11 August, Vance hosted a small reception, organised by Osborne. Four Conservative MPs were there, all relatively young, and none the party leader: Robert Jenrick, Laura Trott, Chris Philp and Katie Lam, who recently clocked nearly one million views on X with a video illustrating mass migration with a jar overflowing with beads. Kemi Badenoch and Vance insisted diary clashes explain her absence. Under normal circumstances, you'd think someone who wants to be prime minister would make a trip to see the person most likely to be the next president of the United States. On 13 August, the vice-president instead met the person most likely to be the next prime minister. He hosted Nigel Farage for a one-on-one breakfast which Farage described to the Telegraph as 'two old friends meeting with many, many common interests. After all, I've been the longest public supporter of Maga in Britain.' Despite this 'old' friendship, Farage is not a recipient of the ultimate honour: the only one of these political guests Vance follows on his X account is Robert Jenrick. And Vance's online habits have taken to even more unexpected corners of British internet culture. He also follows Thomas Skinner, the former Apprentice candidate and self-made English influencer known for his catchphrase 'bosh'. Skinner was a guest at the manor for a barbecue on the evening of 10 August, alongside Orr and the Tory MP Danny Kruger. This is unusual. Imagine Dick Cheney eating ribs with David Davis, Ann Widdecombe, Robert Kilroy-Silk, and a young Michael Gove at a rented cottage in Salcombe. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Vance once said that Kruger's 2023 book on Britain, Covenant, has 'lessons for all of us who love the civilization built by our ancestors'. In a fragment, here is Vance's conflicted affection for England. The view that the ancestral home has been wrecked by liberal progressivism and mass immigration is a common thread in Maga. Steve Bannon once remarked to me: 'It's so pathetic, England. God, I love England – it's so fucked up'. In a column for the Wall Street Journal to mark Vance's visit, Orr claimed that the 'historical heuristic for our [Britain's] national unwinding is Beirut 1975'. That's a soft, almost cryptic way of saying that Britain is heading for a civil war fought along ethno-religious lines. This sense that Britain needs radical reform is what explains Vance's guestlist. Jenrick not only shares a physiognomy – a stout moon-shaped face, topped with closely cropped dark hair – with Vance (at least before Jenrick's Ozempic glow-up); both men have moved gradually but decidedly from liberal conservatism to the radical right, fuelled by civilisational angst at the extraordinary number of migrants who have arrived in Europe and America in recent decades. Another term for their beliefs is national conservatism. And it's not just a belief system: 'national conservatism' might be seen as a byword for this network of individuals, one which can unite theological grandees, international statesmen – and ambitious politicians. The same network of ideas and influence will be on display in Washington DC in September when the National Conservative Conference will take place. This is the sixth annual gathering, the brainchild of the American-Israeli political thinker Yoram Hazony. Vance, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump adviser Stephen Miller have all attended in the past. The conferences are organised by Hazony's Edmund Burke Foundation, who have a UK branch, chaired by none other than Orr. Hazony recently told the New York Times that National Conservatism distinguishes itself in two directions: from the libertarians in the Republican Party to their left and the racist and anti-democratic figures to their right. Farage, who is listed as a conference speaker, has long said something similar about creating a wall between himself and people such as Tommy Robinson. Yet there are other speakers far to the right of most on Vance's guestlist: Jeremy Carl, the man trying to revive white identity politics; Jack Posobiec, a Bannon ally who once called for the overthrow of democracy; Jonathan Keeperman, an influential figure on the online right who runs Passage Press, a publishing company that prints forgotten books by reactionary authors (Ernst Jünger, HP Lovecraft) alongside contemporary writers popular with Maga intellectuals (Curtis Yarvin, Steve Sailer). One forthcoming NatCon panel will discuss how to overturn the Supreme Court ruling which legalised gay marriage in America. Does the British right have anything useful to learn from this crew? Apart from one Farage foray into abortion rights, the social issues that rivet America have little grasp in the UK. And while Skinner might like to tweet occasionally about going to church, the Catholicism of Vance and his political allies is dedicated and doctrinaire. As Ross Douthat, the Catholic New York Times columnist who interviewed Vance at the Vatican in May, told me, 'If you're going to be a Christian in the intelligentsia, it feels like Catholicism or nothing.' A paradox of American secularism is that religion is also a font of political philosophy. That is not the case in Westminster. Kruger's evangelical Christianity is unusual in parliament. But outside the Commons, perhaps the most influential evangelical is Paul Marshall, the owner of the Spectator and co-owner of GB News. Marshall met Vance on 12 August. Yet few in England would cite the Archbishop of Canterbury as a political inspiration. Roger Scruton plays the role of in-house philosopher for British conservatives much more than Pope Benedict XVI. But religiosity is not a precondition for national conservatism. English national conservatism will always be couched in English culture. Progressives' adoption of woke politics, exemplified by the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, was the last significant American political import into Britain. Is Vance leading what could be the next? There is no JD Vance analogue in the country. But this son of Scots-Irish America is assembling the English shards of himself, from the religious intellectual pondering integralism, to the Essex hillbilly with the common touch. National conservatism has the inventory to hand a wily politician both a populist playbook and at the same time an elite intellectual hinterland to serve as a guiding philosophy. One suspects Vance dished out some advice to his guests while in the Cotswolds on how to use this very modern synthesis to fuel Britain with the same forces he and Trump are using to reshape America. [See also: The Cotswolds plot against JD Vance] Related
Daily Mail
27 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Putin stuns Trump as he breaks into English to make surprise Moscow offer after leaders announced 'no deal' on ending Ukraine war
Four words, spoken in English by Russian President Vladimir Putin, seemed to surprise even Donald Trump at the end of their Alaska summit Friday: 'Next time in Moscow.' Trump, who admitted peace talks in Anchorage 'didn't get there', appeared to have been caught off guard, but winged an answer that was both encouraging and non-committal. 'That's an interesting one, I'll get a little heat on that one,' Trump said with a laugh. 'But I could see it possibly happening.' The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House for further comment on Putin's invitation. No American president has visited Russia since Barack Obama attended the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg in 2013. Many were shocked by the overture from Putin to Trump in the moment. 'History is unfolding before our eyes,' one pro-Trump commenter stated. 'That must be the first time he's spoken English on camera in years,' noted journalist Saagar Enjeti. Liberals, unsurprisingly, were critical of the offer as they were of much of the entire meeting. 'Putin opened and spoke first, spoke longer and got the last word inviting his pal Trump to Moscow. Stuffed Trump in a locker. Pathetic and Weak,' wrote former Congresswoman Barbara Comstock. Trump has been to Moscow in the past, including in 2013 to stage the Miss Universe Pageant. He also went with his first wife Ivana on a trip to the then-Soviet Union in 1987, writing in The Art of the Deal that it was after a representative of the USSR suggested he could do business there, potentially building a hotel. Obama was also the last president to go to the Russian capital in Moscow, where he first met with Putin in 2009. However, relations between the United States and the Kremlin have gone downhill since Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, the 'Russiagate' hoax and allegations of interfering in US elections in 2016 and the War in Ukraine that began in 2021. Joe Biden's lone meeting with Putin took place in Geneva in June 2021, just months before the war began. At the summit today, Putin claimed the conflict would not have happened had Trump been president at the time. Bill Clinton, George H.W. and George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon all went to Russia at least once. grea Franklin Delano Roosevelt attended the famous Yalta Conference to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe with Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill just months before his death in 1945. Joe Biden's lone meeting with Putin took place in Geneva in June 2021, just months before the war began. At the summit today, Putin claimed the conflict would not have happened had Trump been president at the time. But the president left the world hanging announcing no details and answering no questions about his 'extremely productive meeting ' with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the future of Ukraine. What was clear was that there was no immediate ceasefire or peace deal to end the Ukraine war out of Friday's Anchorage, Alaska talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. 'We didn't get there,' the usually ebullient president acknowledged, 'but we have a very good chance of getting there.' In an extremely uncharacteristic move, Trump allowed Putin to speak first - at what had been billed as a bilateral press conference - and then didn't answer a single question before shaking hands with Putin again and sauntering offstage. Their whole appearance before the press lasted just 12 minutes following more than three hours of private conversation. 'I'm going to start making a few phone calls and tell them what happened. But we had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to, and there are just a very few that are left,' Trump said. He added, 'Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant.' In his opening statement, Putin flattered Trump by saying his assessment about the Ukraine war was true and that it never would have happened under Trump's watch. 'Today when President Trump's saying that if he was the president back then there will be no war. I'm quite sure it would indeed be so, I can confirm that,' Putin said in Russian through a translator. Putin also placed blame on former President Joe Biden for the U.S.-Russia relationship unraveling, not his February 2022 invasion of America's ally Ukraine. 'I'd like to remind you that in 2022, during the last contact with the previous administration, I tried to convince my previous American colleague that the situation should not be brought to the point of no return when it would come to hostilities,' Putin said, adding it was a 'big mistake.' Putin noted that the U.S.-Russia relationship had soured 'to the lowest point since the Cold War.' 'I think that's not benefiting our countries and the world as a whole,' Putin said. 'It's apparent that sooner or later we had to amend the situation and move on from the confrontation to dialogue.' But Putin's comments were mostly backward-looking, a glaring indication that the U.S. and Russia remained apart on the crucial issues that could lead to a ceasefire in Ukraine. What was clear was that there was no immediate ceasefire or peace deal to end the Ukraine war out of Friday's Anchorage, Alaska talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. 'We didn't get there,' the usually ebullient president acknowledged, 'but we have a very good chance of getting there.' In an extremely uncharacteristic move, Trump allowed Putin to speak first - at what had been billed as a bilateral press conference - and then didn't answer a single question before shaking hands with Putin again and sauntering offstage. Their whole appearance before the press lasted just 12 minutes following more than three hours of private conversation. 'I'm going to start making a few phone calls and tell them what happened. But we had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to, and there are just a very few that are left,' Trump said. He added, 'Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant.' During a sit-down with Sean Hannity taped in the room the summit occurred, the Fox News host asked if the president would reveal to him what that one issue is. 'No, I'd rather not,' Trump replied. 'I guess somebody is going to go public with it, they'll figure it out, but no, I don't want to do that. I want to see if we can get it done.'
