UK’s Starmer in Kyiv for security talks with pledge for ‘100-yr partnership’ with Ukraine
KYIV: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrived in Ukraine’s capital on Thursday with a pledge to help guarantee the country’s security for a century, days before Donald Trump is sworn in as US president.
The British government said Starmer and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will sign a “100-Year Partnership” treaty in Kyiv covering areas including defence, science, energy and trade.
Starmer’s unannounced visit is his first trip to Ukraine since he took office in July.
He visited the country in 2023 when he was opposition leader, and has twice held talks with Zelenskyy in London since becoming prime minister. The war will be three years old next month.
The Italian defense chief was also in Kyiv on Thursday, two days after Germany’s defence minister visited and three days after Zelenskyy talked by phone with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The flurry of diplomatic activity came in the run-up to Trump’s inauguration next Monday, which is expected to bring a departure from the outgoing US administration’s pledge to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes to defeat Russia. Trump has also indicated he wants Europe to shoulder more of the burden for helping Ukraine.
Starmer arrived at Kyiv railway station on a gray and frosty morning. “We’re a long way into this conflict,” Starmer said. “We mustn’t let up.”
During the visit, Starmer and Zelenskyy laid flowers at a wall of remembrance for those killed in the war. The wall outside St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, a Kyiv landmark, is covered in photos of the slain, stretching for a city block. It has become a place of pilgrimage for families paying tribute to their
lost loved ones.
Starmer also visited a Kyiv hospital specialising in burn treatment.
While Starmer was later meeting with Zelenskyy at the presidential palace, a car and a building were damaged elsewhere in Kyiv by debris from Russian drones shot down by Ukraine’s air defences, according to city adminstration chief Tymur Tkachenko.
The UK, one of Ukraine’s biggest military backers, has pledged 12.8 billion pounds (USD 16 billion) in military and civilian aid since Russia’s full-scale invasion three years ago, and has trained more than 50,000 Ukrainian troops on British soil.
Starmer is to announce another 40 million pounds (USD 49 million) for Ukraine’s postwar economic recovery.
But the UK’s role is dwarfed by that of the United States, and there is deep uncertainty over the fate of American support for Ukraine once Trump takes office on January 20.
The president-elect has balked at the cost of US aid to Kyiv, says he wants to bring the war to a swift end and is planning to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom he has long expressed admiration.
Kyiv’s allies have rushed to flood Ukraine with as much support as possible before Trump’s inauguration, with the aim of putting Ukraine in the strongest position possible for any future negotiations to end the war.
Zelenskyy has said that in any peace negotiation, Ukraine would need assurances about its future protection from its much bigger neighbour.
Britain says its 100-year pledge is part of that assurance and will help ensure Ukraine is “never again vulnerable to the kind of brutality inflicted on it by Russia”, which seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and attempted a full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The deal between Ukraine and the UK focuses on defense cooperation, including maritime security, technology, and tracking stolen grain. Discussions also cover NATO membership and France’s ceasefire plan, as both sides prepare for continued conflict and
peace talks. agencies
