{"id":130028,"date":"2025-03-15T12:07:59","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T12:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-we-must-be-prepared-to-defend-peace-deal-starmer-says-on-call-with-leaders-sky-news\/"},"modified":"2025-03-15T12:07:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T12:07:59","slug":"ukraine-war-latest-we-must-be-prepared-to-defend-peace-deal-starmer-says-on-call-with-leaders-sky-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-we-must-be-prepared-to-defend-peace-deal-starmer-says-on-call-with-leaders-sky-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war latest: We must be prepared to defend peace deal, Starmer says on call with leaders – Sky News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is bringing together Ukraine’s allies on a virtual call today to gauge support for his and French President Emmanuel Macron’s “coalition of the willing” idea. Listen to The World podcast with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim as you scroll.
false,Saturday 15 March 2025 12:00, UK
Sir Keir Starmer is set to hold a news conference at 12.30pm, Downing Street has said.
This comes after his virtual meeting with countries that hare part of the ‘coalition of the willing’ this morning.
The prime minister convened around 25 leaders on the call that kicked off at 10am, including from Ukraine, some European countries, the EU Commission, NATO, Canada, Ukraine, Australia and New Zealand.
He is expected to set out details of their discussions about peacekeeping in Ukraine, following his call last night for allies to make “concrete commitments”.
We’ll have live coverage across Sky News, and right here on our Ukraine live page, so do stay with us.
As we’ve been reporting, Sir Keir Starmer convened a virtual meeting of world leaders to discuss peacekeeping in Ukraine if a ceasefire or peace deal is reached.
The meeting started at 10am, and was expected to last around 90 minutes.
A government source has just told Sky News that the call is wrapping up now, meaning it went on a little longer than initially scheduled.
We’re expecting to hear more from Downing Street shortly about what was discussed on the call, so stay tuned…
Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukrainian forces are still fighting in Russia’s Kursk region and are not facing being encircled.
Kyiv’s forces have held a foothold across the Russian border for months, despite heavy fighting.
But recently Kremlin troops have been advancing and there has been question about how long Ukraine will commit to defending the territory.
In a statement on social media today, Zelenskyy also said the situation near the key Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk had stabilised.
But he added: “The buildup of Russian forces indicates that Moscow intends to keep ignoring diplomacy. 
“It is clear that Russia is prolonging the war. We are ready to provide our partners with all the real information on the situation at the front, in the Kursk region, and along our border.”
Opening the meeting of European leaders (and a few from further afield), Sir Keir Starmer emphasised the importance of keeping pressure on Vladimir Putin.
“My feeling is that sooner or later he’s going to have to come to the table and engage in serious discussion,” the prime minister said.
He also said Europe and its partners must be “prepared to defend any deal ourselves through a coalition of the willing”.
While the video call of the ‘coalition of the willing’ is taking place in private, we do have some details as to who has spoken so far.
A government source has said that Sir Keir Starmer, French president Emmanuel Macron, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, and new Canadian prime minister Mark Carney have spoken in the meeting.
Downing Street said last night that around 25 countries and organisations were expected to join the call that is scheduled to last around 90 minutes.
The best possible outcome from today’s coalition of the willing meeting is consensus among the European countries, a former senior EU diplomat says.
“I think we can see that there is a hard core of countries that are ready to support this approach,” Sir Michael Leigh, who was the European Commission’s chief negotiator for EU enlargement, told Sky News.
“There are outliers, obviously, like Hungary and Slovakia, which are openly pro-Russian,” he continued. “But what we do see is the major countries in Western Europe and Poland who see the importance in supporting Ukraine and putting their heads together now to consider what kind of security guarantees could ensure Ukraine’s future after a ceasefire.”
Sir Michael said a key outcome of the meeting would be if there was consensus among the participants, not just France and the UK but Italy, Poland and others.  
The meeting of world leaders to discuss peacekeeping in Ukraine, convened by Sir Keir Starmer, kicked off a few minutes ago, and he made some comments at the top of the meeting.
The PM told his counterparts that “a lot has happened” in the past week that they need to discuss.
In reference to Ukraine and the United States holding talks in Saudi Arabia this week, Starmer said Volodymyr Zelenskyy had shown that “Ukraine is the party of peace because he has committed to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire”.
But Putin is “trying to delay”, the PM said, and added that if the Russia president is “serious about peace, he has to stop his barbaric attacks on Ukraine and agree to a ceasefire”.
“My feeling is, sooner or later he’s going to have to come to the table and engage in serious discussion,” Starmer said.
“But we can’t sit back and simply wait for that to happen. We have to keep pushing ahead, pushing forward, and preparing for peace – a peace that will be secure and that will last.”
That means strengthening Ukraine’s own defences, “being prepared to defend any deal ourselves through a coalition of the willing”, and keeping “the pressure on Putin to come to the table”.
Rescuers have been working in Kherson after a Russian air strike.
“The Russian army is intensifying the terror of the residents of Kherson!,” the region’s governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram.
“One of the guided bombs hit a residential area – a private house is on fire in the central district.”
Prosecutors in Kherson said a 43-year-old man was killed in a strike and his body was pulled from the rubble, RBC Ukraine reported.
Meanwhile in the village of Tekstylne, a 14-year-old child was wounded.
Pictures from the Reuters news agency show rescue workers picking through wreckage as fires light the sky orange.  
With European leaders expected to discuss support for Ukraine today, let’s recap what a “coalition of the willing” could look like.
The phrase was a central theme of Sir Keir Starmer’s speech after European leaders gathered in London for crucial talks about Ukraine’s future earlier this month.
Led by the UK and France, the initiative could see troops from a number of European and NATO countries deployed to Ukraine as peacekeepers in order to deter Vladimir Putin from rearming and attacking again in the future.
So who’s in, who’s out – and what’s behind these latest buzzwords?
Read more: 
Russia claims to have retaken control of two villages in the Kursk region.
Kremlin troops have been launching offensives in the the border region, where Ukrainian forces have had a foothold in Russian territory for months despite heavy fighting.
The villages of Rubanshchina and Zaoleshenka are now under Russian control, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday.
Ukrainian soldiers are losing their foothold on the region after Russia’s advances but claims that “thousands” are at risk of being encircled have been dismissed by Sky News defence analyst Michael Clarke.
“I don’t think they’re in that situation at the moment, but undoubtedly, as we’ve been saying for the last 24 hours, if they’re going to get out they have to get out now,” he said yesterday. 
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