Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer (R) greets European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (L) as she arrives to attend a defense summit held at Lancaster House in central London on March 2, 2025. (Photo by AFP)
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the governments in London and Paris plan to devise a new ceasefire scheme with Ukraine, taking the lead from the United States on drawing up a plan to "stop the fighting" with Russia.
Starmer said on Sunday that the UK and France will work with Ukraine to draw up the new ceasefire plan which will then be presented to US President Donald Trump for approval.
He described the fresh initiative as "an important step forward" after the ties between Kiev and Washington were severely strained during Friday's public confrontation between the Ukrainian and US presidents.
The fresh initiative came about as the result of Starmer's phone calls and visit to US President Donald Trump, as well as talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, following the "fiasco" in the Oval Office on Friday.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Zelensky should apologize for clashing with Trump in the Oval Office on Friday.
In an interview with CNN, Rubio called on Zelensky to “apologize for turning this thing into the fiasco for him that it became.”
The top US diplomat also questioned whether Zelensky wanted to end the Ukraine war that started in February 2022.
Meanwhile, speaking to the BBC in an interview ahead of a crunch international summit on Ukraine on Sunday, Starmer suggested that "possibly a few others" could be involved in drafting the ceasefire plan.
Starmer is set to welcome world leaders in London on Sunday for talks on bolstering European defense.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and more than a dozen countries, including France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, and the Netherlands, have been invited to London to discuss the Ukraine war against Russia.
"No one wants this conflict to go on, least of all the Ukrainians," Starmer told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, adding that he believed Trump was also committed to a "lasting peace" in Ukraine.
"President Zelensky is rightly concerned that if there's to be a deal, it has to hold. That's why we've talked extensively about what are the guarantees - in what way do we all defend the deal if that deal is made," he said.
"If there is to be a deal, if there is to be a stopping of the fighting, then that agreement has to be defended, because the worst of all outcomes is that there is a temporary pause and then Putin comes again. That has happened in the past, I think there's a real risk," Starmer went on.
Starmer has previously set three components for a potential ceasefire plan and on Sunday he reiterated that US backing would be one of three essential components in the potential ceasefire plan.
“I’ve always been clear that that is going to need a US backstop because I don’t think it would be a guarantee without it, I don’t think it would be a deterrent without it, so the two have to go together," Starmer said.
In the meantime, Starmer has positioned himself as a diplomatic bridge between Europe and the US as efforts to initiate talks over Ukraine's future intensify.
While several European leaders have rallied around Zelensky following Friday's confrontation in the Oval Office, Starmer had been more cautious, speaking with both Zelensky and Trump in the immediate aftermath of their bust-up.
He said on Sunday that he trusted both Zelensky and Trump and insisted that the relationship between the US and the UK continues to be the "closest relationship of any two countries in the world."