British personnel ready to arrive in Ukraine once fighting on hold
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.'
Before Mr Trump and Mr Putin met, Defence Secretary John Healey told the BBC he hoped the talks would prove to be 'a first step towards serious negotiations'.
He added: 'The UK's role is to stand with Ukraine on the battlefield and in the negotiations, and prepare, as we have been, leading 30 other nations with military planning for a ceasefire and a secure peace through what we call the Coalition of the Willing.'
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Channel 4
23 minutes ago
- Channel 4
Fury, tears and fatigue in Ukraine
Maidan Square in central Kyiv 12 years ago was thronged with protesters desperate to stop Ukraine's then president cosying up to Vladimir Putin. Now, everywhere you look, the ground is carpeted with miniature Ukrainian flags , each one remembering a soldier killed in Russia's bloody onslaught. Amongst the flags, grieving relatives have placed lovingly-framed pictures of the fallen – more often than not young men, sacrificed to a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. A few scattered visitors pay tribute, stooping to look at names or take pictures. It is a haunting vista. A gut-wrenching reminder of the human cost of the war Donald Trump promised to end on his first day in office. On Friday in Alaska, he failed to deliver on that pledge more than 200 days later. Families of Ukrainian soldiers went to the American embassy in Kyiv on Friday to make their feelings known to the US president. 'Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,' says Maryna, whose husband Mykola has been missing in action since 2023. They're furious their president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wasn't invited to the Alaskan summit, forced to watch from the sidelines as the man the Ukrainians call a war criminal was treated not only to a red carpet arrival but a ride in the 'Beast', the presidential limousine, not to mention the fly-past. Natalia tells me about her brother Andrei, who'd always looked after her, until he went missing on his first frontline mission in February. She hasn't heard from him since. She tries to stay hopeful but it's desperately difficult. 'I think that he is suffering,' she says, swallowing her tears. 'He always protected me. I was always his younger sister and being without him for me as a person, for me as a girl, here in Kyiv, this is very hard. But I am standing for him and praying that one day he will stand up for me once again.' Wandering around cities like Kyiv or Lviv, apart from the regular din of air raid sirens, it's hard to believe this is a country at war. A pianist performing live in the grounds of Kyiv's St Sophia Cathedral draws crowds, the restaurants thrum with diners and strains of a saxophone drift into the warm night air. The families of those who have sacrificed everything to defend Ukraine's freedom and sovereignty hope to enjoy all this once again. They want peace, of course. But before that they want victory. Publicly, most Ukrainians defend to the hilt Zelenskyy's insistence that not an inch of territory will be handed to Putin. Privately though, more than three years since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, and eleven since Moscow casually annexed Crimea, some express a weary resignation that in the months to come, concessions may have to be made. They're encouraged that European countries stiffened Trump's resolve before his encounter with Putin. Zelenskyy's one-to-one meeting with Trump on Monday in Washington DC is the audience Europe had called for. And there are reports European leaders may also be invited to these talks. So the dream of the Maidan protesters of drawing closer to Europe lives on. And the president successfully dislodged by the Maidan uprising is now in exile in Russia, given sanctuary by the man now pulverising Ukraine. This article was first published on Substack. Subscribe to Channel 4 News.
The Independent
23 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump and Zelensky to meet at the White House Monday as fallout from Putin Alaska summit continues. Here's what to expect
After a controversial summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House on Monday. Trump and Putin met at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska on Friday afternoon to discuss an end to Russia's war on Ukraine, which began more than three years ago. The pair announced 'great progress' had been made, but they still did not reach any kind of plan to end the war. Trump told Fox News ahead of the meeting that he 'won't be happy' walking away without 'some form of a ceasefire.' But Trump changed course early Saturday morning, writing on Truth Social that Ukraine and Russia should strive for a peace deal, rather than a ceasefire. Trump spoke with Zelensky after the summit. The Ukrainian leader described the talk as a 'long and substantive conversation.' Now he's heading to the White House for a face-to-face meeting with the president. 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Several European leaders, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, said in a statement they were briefed on Trump's meeting with Putin. 'We are clear that Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees to effectively defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity. We welcome President Trump's statement that the U.S. is prepared to give security guarantees," the statement said. Meanwhile, Zelensky said his call with Trump lasted more than 90 minutes. 'Ukraine reaffirms its readiness to work with maximum effort to achieve peace. President Trump informed about his meeting with the Russian leader and the main points of their discussion,' Zelensky said. 'It is important that America's strength has an impact on the development of the situation.' Zelensky said the U.S. should strengthen sanctions on Russia if there is 'no trilateral meeting or if Russia tries to evade an honest end to the war.' 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However, the meeting quickly devolved into chaos. Trump accused Zelensky of 'gambling with World War Three,' while Vance claimed the Ukrainian leader was 'disrespectful' and 'ungrateful.' 'You don't have the cards right now,' Trump told Zelensky in March. 'With us, you start having gambling with the lives of millions of people.' Brian Glenn, a correspondent for the conservative network Real America's Voice, even asked Zelensky why he wasn't wearing a suit to the Oval Office meeting. Vance smiled at the question. 'Why don't you wear a suit? You're at the highest level in this country's office, and you refuse to wear a suit,' Glenn said. "I will wear [a suit] after this war finishes. Maybe something like yours, maybe something better," Zelensky retorted.
Telegraph
24 minutes ago
- Telegraph
A terrible deal may be the best Ukraine can do
After Donald Trump's summit with Vladimir Putin, the contours of a possible peace deal between Russia and Ukraine are beginning to emerge. They make for grim reading. Ukraine will be asked to hand over significant areas of land it currently holds in Donetsk, in exchange for trivial territorial concessions from Russia. To give Kyiv certainty, the United States will offer security guarantees understood to mimic those found in Nato's Article 5. Should a final deal be signed on these terms, it must be understood as a national tragedy for Ukraine, which will have fought valiantly for over two years only to see Putin's expenditure of blood and treasure rewarded with soil he never took in battle. It will be a setback for the West, which had sought to provide Kyiv with the means to secure its territory, and watched instead as European borders were redrawn by force. And, regrettably, it will be probably the best deal that can be achieved. As Bismarck observed, the great questions are decided by iron and blood. The conclusion of the past three and a half years of gruelling warfare is that Russia cannot take the whole of Ukraine, and that Ukraine cannot expel Russia from the whole of its territory. Leaders in Washington and in Europe could have tipped the balance by providing more support to Ukraine faster, which would have left Kyiv in a far superior position today. But we are where we are, and we must deal with the world as we find it. There is some optimism still to be found. These proposals fall far short of what Putin may have envisaged when his forces reached Kyiv early in the conflict, and they are better than many will have feared in February, when Donald Trump and JD Vance held a public shouting match with Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. The suspension of American military aid that followed threatened a nightmarish outcome in which Putin's forces would be able to resume their forward momentum. Fortunately, if belatedly, Mr Trump appears to have recognised that Putin was not a good-faith negotiator. In the process, however, he had highlighted the degree to which Kyiv's resistance still relies on American goodwill. This has been the stick in his attempt to push Mr Zelensky towards agreeing a deal. As much as it might desire otherwise, Europe does not appear to have the capacity to sustain Kyiv's fight without American backing. Given these constraints, the outlined deal does not appear to be as bad as could have been feared. The devil will be in the detail. If Putin does insist on significant transfers of territory into Russian control, the calculus must be run on whether this is a better outcome than can be attained through significantly increasing shipments of armaments to Ukraine, and again tightening sanctions on Russia. It may still be the case that Putin's opening request is a negotiating ploy, and that he is making outrageous demands in order to be 'talked down' to secure what he actually wishes. There is certainly little harm in attempting to push back against the scale of his requests, but should a deal eventually be struck, it will bring into focus the next critical point: the security guarantees offered. It must be clear that any deal signals the final shaking out of the collapse of the Soviet Union. There can be no further attempts to claim 'Russian' territory in Europe's nations. The borders will be fixed and remain so. This requires that the military guarantees offered by the United States are clear, binding and backed by sufficient force to make the prospect of further land grabs unthinkable. Europe and Britain must make a real commitment also, which will require faster increases in defence spending than are currently planned. Ukraine will point to past experience. In 1994, the Budapest Memorandum saw Kyiv surrender the nuclear arsenal it had inherited from the Soviet Union to Russia, in exchange winning pledges from the United States, Britain and Russia to respect the 'sovereignty' and 'existing borders' of Ukraine, a pledge to 'refrain from the threat or use of force' against these, and to 'seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance' should Ukraine ever be 'a victim of an act of aggression'. Putin's actions in 2014 and subsequently have shown these words to be worth less than the paper they were written on. Meaningful security guarantees require not only cast-iron pledges but the will and capacity to enforce them. Better still would be equipping Ukraine with the resources necessary to defend itself, so that delays and hesitation on the part of Western powers will never again leave Kyiv open to aggression. This would be, to reiterate, an unsatisfactory deal. Putin's invasion of Ukraine was a shameless and appalling crime, an egregious outrage committed against every norm of international conduct. That, should he prove successful in striking a peace deal, he will no doubt attempt to claim victory should stick in the craw. And that he has achieved less than he set out to should be slim comfort. A just end to the war would have been Putin's utter defeat and expulsion from power in Moscow. But we are dealing with the world as it is rather than as it should be. This deal, as horrendous as it is, could be the least bad option left to Ukraine and its Western allies.
