British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says his country was pressured to criticize a public spat between Presidents Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump at the White House.
Starmer said this in an interview with The New York Times (NYT).
“On the day that the Oval Office meeting between President Trump and President Zelensky didn’t go very well, we were pressured to be very critical, using, you know, bright adjectives to describe what others were feeling,” Starmer says.
However, he did not disclose from which side he was receiving pressure — American or Ukrainian. Instead, he said, he decided to speak to both sides by phone to try to bring them back to a “common position”.
So after the dispute, the British prime minister sent his national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, to Kyiv to advise Zelensky on how to mend relations with Trump. He also prepared the Ukrainian delegation for talks with the Americans in Saudi Arabia.
Regarding Trump’s actions — from imposing a 25% tariff on British steel to criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — Starmer said he acknowledged the president had caused “a certain amount of disorientation”. The right response, he said, was to not give in to provocations.
What happened between Ukraine and the USA?
During a meeting at the White House on February 28, Zelensky and Trump began to argue and escalated their conversation. It all started with the Ukrainian presidentʼs words about the need to provide Ukraine with security guarantees and actively include Kyiv in the negotiation process.
After that, the journalists left the meeting, and later it became known that the President of Ukraine left the White House early. Trump said that the President of Ukraine was not ready for peace. The countries did not sign the agreement on Ukrainian minerals, although this was the main purpose of Zelenskyʼs visit to Washington.
On March 5, the US stopped sharing all intelligence with Ukraine and also halted military aid that was en route. After talks between Ukrainian and American delegations in Saudi Arabia, the US immediately lifted the pause in intelligence sharing and resumed security assistance to Kyiv.
Ukraine has agreed to the American proposal to immediately introduce a temporary, 30-day ceasefire. This will be possible by mutual consent of the parties — if the Russian Federation accepts these conditions and also adheres to them. Now it is about stopping the attacks of both countries on energy and civilian infrastructure. If the Russian Federation violates the ceasefire agreements — Ukraine will respond in kind.
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