It's not too late for Britain to act and lead Europe in defending Ukraine

Telegraph

28-04-2025

The sight of Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky conferring in the majestic calm of St Peter's Basilica offers a reminder that all is not lost in Ukraine.
Yes, their encounter came straight after Vladimir Putin's open-armed greeting for Steve Witkoff, the American envoy; true, Mr Trump's seven-point peace plan obviously favours Russia.
But the president might yet redeem everything by giving Ukraine the clear American security guarantee that remains the only sure way of ending this war and deterring Putin from coming back for a third invasion.
To maximise this chance, our Government needs to do something difficult and profoundly counter-cultural for many of our diplomats. There is no point fuming over Mr Trump's folly or portraying him as the villain of Ukraine's ordeal, or hoping that a miraculous combination of blandishment and flattery (a state visit!) might still win him over.
Instead, Britain should use the levers that are in our hands, setting an example that European allies might follow. Now is the moment to lead.
That means taking three steps: seize the Russian assets, lower the price cap for Putin's oil, and back the Sanctions Bill now in the US Senate.
Charles de Gaulle once advised a British ambassador to pause every day and consider events 'from the point of view of the future historian'. In 50 years, historians are going to be astonished that even as Putin was waging the bloodiest European war since 1945, Europe was sitting on about €230 billion (£196 billion) of Russian state assets, lying frozen in dozens of banks.
Think what could be done with that colossal sum, amounting to 140 per cent of Ukraine's GDP. We could give it all to Kyiv, allowing Mr Zelensky to multiply his military spending fivefold. Or we could use €100 billion to capitalise a bank to kick-start Europe's rearmament while still leaving almost enough to triple Ukraine's defence budget.
That money could have what generals call 'strategic effect': it might change the course of the war. Best of all, Europe has the power to force Russia to become the first aggressor in history to fund the resistance to its own aggression. Then we could tell every Russian that their own money was buying the shells and bullets killing their own soldiers.
So why hasn't it happened? There is a legal basis for pressing ahead, but seizing the assets would still be held to violate property rights, deter investment and damage the reputation of Europe's law-abiding open economies.
These objections, once decisive, have surely been overtaken by the gravity of events. In fact Europe has already crossed the Rubicon and undermined property rights by freezing the assets and using their interest payments to underwrite a $50 billion loan for Ukraine. But there is still no EU consensus behind full seizure.
Our Government should remember that Britain is no longer bound by EU decision-making. At this moment, £25 billion of Russian assets lie frozen in UK institutions. Britain should go ahead and seize them, establishing a precedent for the EU to follow. If that needs emergency legislation, so be it.
Taking £25 billion would not have strategic effect but it would still fund a 60 per cent increase in Ukraine's defence budget, or allow this year's £3 billion of British military aid to be multiplied eightfold.
Our Government should get on and do it and break the deadlock.
As we strengthen Ukraine's finances, so we must do more to weaken Russia's. The G7 has imposed a price cap on Russian oil exports, denying insurance or services to any tanker carrying Putin's oil unless it sells its cargo for $60 a barrel or less.
But the market price for oil is now down to around $66, making the price cap virtually meaningless. The obvious answer would be to lower the limit, but that would require a G7 consensus and America can no longer be relied upon.
Should we stare helplessly at this impasse or try to break it? Britain is the biggest provider of maritime insurance in the G7. We could use that lever to impose our own price cap for Russian oil, say of $30 per barrel, and once again set a precedent for others to follow.
Meanwhile, not every American Republican agrees with Trump on Russia. On April 1, Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, introduced a Bill in the Senate to impose what he called 'bone-breaking sanctions' on Russia, designed to choke Putin's oil exports once and for all by levying a 500 per cent tariff on any country that buys them.
That Bill now has the public backing of 55 senators, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. The votes are there to get it passed.
Does the British Government have a view? Is our embassy in Washington lobbying in favour of Senator Graham's sanctions? Is Lord Mandelson, our new ambassador, gliding the corridors of Capitol Hill, using his famous diplomatic skills to promote this measure. If not, why not?
Everything I have written challenges the deeply ingrained culture of the Foreign Office. During nearly eight years working there and in Downing Street, I saw how our diplomats are steeped in the belief that Britain can never achieve anything important except in concert with others, preferably America, and if that is impossible then it's usually best to do nothing. Their mantra is: act 'in company' or not at all.
The problem with saying 'never act alone' is that it becomes 'never act first' and then 'never lead'. Boris Johnson had to overrule the weight of Whitehall opinion when, in January 2022, he sent 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine just before the full-scale invasion, when no other country was publicly arming Kyiv.
By proposing the unilateral use of hard power – supplying missiles – he was challenging a sacred dogma of British diplomacy. But Johnson was vindicated when those weapons helped Ukraine to wreck Russia's invasion plan and defeat Putin's assault on Kyiv. Soon dozens of European countries were following Britain's lead and sending arms.
We should learn the lesson: we are not powerless and sometimes it pays to go first.
In Mr Trump's new world, waiting for Washington can no longer be a reflex. Today nothing matters more than for the Foreign Office to shake off the outdated attitude that ties our hands.