Kremlin rejects Trump peacekeeper claim – DW – 02/25/2025

Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday announced that he would host fellow world leaders at a conference to discuss Ukraine and transatlantic relations.

“I am hosting a number of countries at the weekend for us to continue to discuss how we go forward together as allies in light of the situation that we face,” he told reporters.

Starmer, who will meet with US President Donald Trump in the White House on Thursday, also said he had spoken with French President Emmanuel Macron, who himself was hosted by Trump on Monday.

Transatlantic relations have been in turmoil since Trump’s return to power and his upending of US foreign policy.

European leaders have grown increasingly concerned that America under Trump may abandon not only the cause of freedom in Ukraine, but also security commitments to NATO and European allies — notwithstanding outright hostile statements from Trump and his administration that openly call into question whether the US and Europe are allies or adversaries.

The Kremlin on Tuesday reaffirmed its stance against peacekeepers in Ukraine, despite US President Donald Trump yesterday claiming the opposite.

On Monday, during a visit from French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump said, “Yeah, he will accept,” when asked, “Will you convince Vladimir Putin to accept European troops as peacekeepers?”

Trump claimed, “I specifically asked him that question. He has no problem with it.”

When asked about Trump’s statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday referred to Russia’s official position as recently articulated by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, saying “I have nothing to add to that.”

Lavrov called the presence of NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine “unacceptable.”

Russia has repeatedly rejected the idea of NATO troops in Ukraine, calling the concept a “direct threat” and an “escalation” of the war in Ukraine.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday announced that his country would raise defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by the year 2027. Starmer said growing insecurity calls for a “generational response.”

The increase will amount to $17 billion (€16.2 billion) annually.

“We must stand by Ukraine, because if we do not achieve a lasting peace, then the economic instability and threats to our security, they will only grow,” Starmer told lawmakers Tuesday in the House of Commons.

“And so, as the nature of that conflict changes, as it has in recent weeks, it brings our response into sharper focus, a new era that we must meet as we have so often in the past, together, and with strength.”

The UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defense and aspires to raise that to 3% by 2035.

The current increase will be funded by cuts to overseas development aid. Already a paltry 0.5% of GDP, that foreign aid will be slashed to 0.3%.

Starmer called the cuts a “very difficult and painful decision” brought on by the actions of “tyrant” Vladimir Putin.

The announcement came just ahead of Starmer’s trip to Washington DC to speak with President Donald Trump about the US commitment to Kyiv and his plans to forge a peace deal between Ukraine and invader Russia.

Lawmakers in Ukraine’s parliament on Tuesday voted to pass a bill reaffirming Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s rightful and legitimate president until the end of martial law is declared.

The legislation, which failed to pass on Monday in a session marking the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion, garnered 268 votes on Tuesday (a total of 226 were needed to pass).

“The Verkhovna Rada [Ukraine’s parliament] once again recalls that the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” read the law, “was elected in free, transparent, democratic elections. His mandate is not called into question by the Ukrainian people or the Verkhovna Rada.”

The move comes as Donald Trump has echoed calls from Russian President Vladimir Putin for Zelenskyy to step down, with Trump going so far as to call Zelenskyy an “dictator”who refuses to hold elections. 

Trump has repeated calls for new elections several times. His sidekick Elon Musk has also sought to inject the idea that Zelenskyy is corrupt into the conversation, saying the war is nothing but a “graft machine.”

Zelenskyy’s five-year term as president officially ended in May 2024, but new elections have not been held as the country has been under attack by Russia since its forces launched a full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.