Hot Air: Europeans Claim Solidarity at Emergency Ukraine Summit in London, But Provide Few Answers

The Ukraine war summit in London on Sunday ended with essentially as many questions remaining as before the meeting. No announcement was made of any other European nations willing to join Britain and France in committing troops on the ground, and continued demands were made that the United States underwrite the safety of any such force.

A cavalcade of European leaders descended upon London on Sunday for another round of supposed emergency Ukraine war talks — this time hosted by British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at Lancaster House — as the continent continues to attempt to determine a cohesive plan for its role in the aftermath of a potential peace settlement between Kyiv and Moscow following three years of brutal warfare.

Prime Minister Starmer emerged from the meeting announcing that in addition to the £2.2 billion loan to Kyiv from seized Russian assets announced Saturday, the UK would also provide an additional £1.6 billion to Ukraine from “UK export finance” to allow Kyiv to purchase some Belfast-made 5,000 air defence missiles.

Aside from this, the agreements from the summit were fairly limited. Starmer said that the leaders agreed to keep sending military aid to Ukraine, that Ukraine should be at the table of negotiations, and to continue funding Ukraine’s defence in the event of a peace deal.

The British prime minister doubled down on his intention to commit British “boots on the ground and planes in the air” to Ukraine to act as a peacekeeping force in the event of an end to the war.

While Starmer claimed that “a number of countries” expressed interest in joining his and French President Emmanuel Macron’s so-called “coalition of the willing”, no other country left the meeting on Sunday announcing any firm commitment to send soldiers into Ukraine.

Notably, Germany, Italy, and Poland remain uncommitted to deploying their respective military forces. Starmer said he would let other countries announce their intentions but admitted that more talks were likely needed to craft a unified European strategy.

Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who attended the meeting of European leaders, said that “everything is on the table” regarding potential troop deployments but that Ottowa would not “get ahead of the discussions on how to keep a peace that isn’t yet in place.”

In a tacit admission that European powers are currently unable to effectively enforce a lasting peace in Ukraine, Starmer insisted that any peacekeeping force would need “strong US backing,” suggesting that America commit to defending them should a future Russian attack occur.

“The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others, Europe must do the heavy lifting but to support peace in our continent and to succeed, this effort must have strong US backing,” Starmer said.

“We’re working with the US on this point, after my meeting with President Trump last week, and let me be clear, we agree with the President on the urgent need for a durable peace. Now we need to deliver together.”

The Trump administration has so far refused to make any commitment and has argued that a peacekeeping force should not be considered a NATO mission, meaning that the United States would not be bound by Article 5 of the alliance to enter into a war with Russia on behalf of the Europeans.

Besides vaguely worded statements from European leaders about boosting their collective defence spending — without any firm commitments being made on Sunday — the summit in London also saw Prime Minister Starmer and President Macron say that they would work with Ukraine to develop a framework for a peace deal and later present it to the Trump administration.

This came after peace talks blew up on Friday as President Zelensky was ejected from the White House after arguing with President Trump and Vice President Vance in a public Oval Office meeting. Zelensky was accused of being “disrespectful” for trying to litigate the terms of the peace process in front of the world’s media during a heated exchange with Trump.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cast doubt on the notion that Britain and France could act as effective mediators, telling ABC News on Sunday that “President Trump is the only person on Earth who has any chance whatsoever of bringing” Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.

“I’ve asked every foreign minister I meet with, ‘Tell me your idea of how this turns out.’ Most don’t have a plan. A few have said, well, let’s give them another year of fighting, a year from now, a year later, after another year of death, another year of destruction, then maybe Putin will be ready to negotiate at that point. That doesn’t sound like a good plan to me, and it certainly is not a plan the President is on board with.”

The top U.S. diplomat said that the administration’s goal is to get Russia to the negotiating table, and that others should not interfere and disrupt that process. “And that’s what Zelensky did, unfortunately… we all understand that Putin is not going to be an easy negotiator in this regard. We all get that. But we have to start the process to see if something is even possible,” Rubio said.