Before Donald Trump’s second state visit to the UK, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Trump to have a “clear position” on security guarantees for Ukraine. In an interview with Sky News, Zelensky said he wants a document supported by the US and all European partners. “To make this happen, we need a clear position of President Trump,” he said.
But with Russia’s intensified attacks on Ukraine, provocation of NATO members Poland and Romania, and the joint Russia-Belarus war drills, Putin is far from stopping the war. Earlier this month, Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said peace talks were currently “on pause”, and it remains in question whether any security guarantees can make progress.
Commenting on the state visit, Dr. Marcin Kaczmarski, Lecturer in Security Studies at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, said Starmer’s influence on Trump is limited to rhetoric since Europe has little material to offer beyond purchasing US equipment for Ukraine. Like other European leaders, Starmer can only try to persuade Trump that supporting security guarantees is in the US interest.
He told the Express: “Security guarantees for Ukraine will work only with the US backing. Some would think that Russia’s recent behaviour, especially the drone incursions in Poland and Romania, would impact the White House’s approach. But I haven’t seen any indication that these drone attacks would somehow convince the Trump administration to be more willing to offer the security guarantees. My hunch would be that the logic in the Kremlin is that if they push hard enough but without openly provoking, they will rather discourage the US from offering these security guarantees.”
According to Kaczmarski, there are two ways in which the Russian military can engage with the British. “One is what we have already seen,” he said. “These are incursions into the airspace, increasing the number of Russian patrols in the North Sea, which can even accidentally lead to a clash.”
Second, if British troops were deployed to western Ukraine, Kaczmarski does not expect Moscow to directly confront British or European forces, but rather operate in a “grey zone” of plausible deniability. He thinks Russia would likely resort to deniable attacks – for example, using drones – and then claim they were accidental.
“The outcome for Russia would be testing NATO and demonstrating that NATO does not work, or that the security guarantees for Ukraine are not worth much,” he added, pointing to Russia’s recent drone incursions into Poland and Romania.
Another question is what the security guarantees would entail and what they would mean for Britain. “You don’t need boots on the ground, but if the US is willing to provide an air cover with a massive deployment of air force to Poland and Ukraine, then it does make a difference, even without US troops stationed physically in Ukraine,” Kaczmarski said.
When asked about whether Britain would have enough personnel to send to Ukraine, he explained the deployment would not be about numbers or outmatching Russia but about political signalling. It would mean that NATO is guaranteeing the ceasefire, so any Russian attack would be treated as an attack on NATO.
For Wayne Jordash KC, President of the human rights foundation Global Rights Compliance, security guarantees discussions between Starmer and Trump cannot be limited to military commitments or boots on the ground pledges.
“Ukraine needs binding security guarantees that provide real deterrence. They must encompass long term military support, including supply of weapons and munitions, real time intelligence sharing, and systematic preparation to confront a future Russian attack on Ukraine’s sovereign territory. These should all be provided as part of a multilateral pact involving the UK, EU and hopefully the US,” he told the Express.
But for many Ukrainians, the discussions amount to little more than empty talk. Dmytro, co-founder of the volunteer organisation Druzi Space who lives Druzhkivka, a city in Donbas just over 10 miles from the frontline, is one of them.
He told the Express: “I don’t know what security guarantees we can talk about, to be honest. Some limited contingent of troops may be introduced into the most remote western regions of Ukraine, but closer to the border with Russia – no. The US and Europe are afraid of Putin, in order to end the war and provide clear security guarantees, you need to have balls of steel and not be afraid to take responsibility for the decisions made and the words spoken.”