Starmer's Ukraine caution risks loss of clout ahead of Trump

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the U.K. gained a reputation for being one of the biggest advocates for aggressive support for Ukraine. But under Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s tenure, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration and its supporters have grown increasingly concerned about Britain’s more cautious approach.

Officials close to Zelenskyy have privately expressed disappointment in Starmer for months, and believe he’s followed outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden’s more wary approach rather than pushing allies to give Ukraine what it needs to win the war outright. Like other officials cited in this story, they asked not to be named discussing sensitive international relations. Starmer’s office declined to comment.

With Starmer traveling to Ukraine on Thursday, Zelenskyy’s team has questioned why it’s taken the U.K. premier — in office now for more than six months — so long. His predecessor, Rishi Sunak, visited Ukraine within a month of becoming prime minister, while former premier Boris Johnson did so less than two months after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

A more tentative U.K. could deprive Ukraine of the sort of partner that earlier in the war drove many of the country’s gains in terms of equipment and weaponry, overcoming resistance by other allies. Britain’s decision to provide Challenger tanks in early 2023 prompted the U.S. and Germany to follow. In November that year, the U.K. said it would supply Ukraine with Storm Shadows — at the time the longest-range missiles provided. Britain was also first to sign a security cooperation agreement with Ukraine.

While Sunak and Johnson would often use private meetings of Group of Seven leaders to try to persuade Europe and Biden to provide more military support and faster — and had some limited success in doing so — as a newcomer in government, Starmer has tended to take a more deferential tone to the Americans, European officials told Bloomberg.

The U.K. premier instead appears to have fallen in line with the more measured approach taken by Biden and some European leaders like Germany’s Olaf Scholz, one of them said. A lower-profile Britain risks ceding greater space to leaders like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni within the Group of Seven nations.

Britain is now seen as “one of the allies rather than being the leader among European states in backing Ukraine,” Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House, said in an interview. “The fact that it’s taken so long for the prime minister to go to Kyiv is a signal in itself that it’s not his personal priority and there has been a certain frustration in Ukraine about that sagging role of the U.K. in supporting Ukraine.”

Starmer will hope a package of aid he’s due to announce Thursday will bolster his reputation as an advocate for Ukraine. The two countries are due to sign a 100-year partnership to deepen security ties, including by bolstering military cooperation, maritime security, and research into space and drones, according to a statement from his office.

“Putin’s ambition to wrench Ukraine away from its closest partners has been a monumental strategic failure,” Starmer said in the statement. “Instead, we are closer than ever, and this partnership will take that friendship to the next level.”

An air raid alarm and explosions sounded over Kyiv during Starmer’s visit as air defense fired at a Russian drone flying over the central part of the city. The falling debris damaged a car without causing any casualties, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. Asked about that, Starmer said “this is the reminder for all of us of what Ukraine is facing every day.”

While Starmer has shown leadership in pushing for harsher sanctions on the shadow fleet of vessels moving Russia’s oil, Ukraine was particularly frustrated with how slow the prime minister was to allow it to use the storm shadow missiles to strike inside Russia.

That permission finally came in November in the wake of U.S. approval and in response to Russia deploying North Korean troops in the conflict. One Ukrainian official says Starmer’s position was unclear for months and it took a long time for the U.K. to re-supply Ukraine with the missiles, reducing their impact on the ground at a critical point in the war.

“It was almost like the U.K. was hiding behind the U.S.” and Biden’s cautious approach, Lutsevych said. “That undermined efforts on the front line.”

A Starmer ally countered that Storm Shadows have only been used in strikes in Russia during his premiership, and that he’d privately resupplied Kyiv with more of the missiles without fanfare after they ran low on the watch of the previous Conservative government. Starmer’s administration has also made indefinite a commitment by Sunak to provide £3 billion ($3.7 billion) a year of military aid to Ukraine. Moreover, Defence Secretary John Healey has twice traveled to Kyiv, including on his second day in post, while Foreign Secretary David Lammy has also visited.

Starmer’s first trip to Kyiv as premier comes just before Donald Trump returns to the White House, a development that’s expected to push the conflict into a new phase of negotiation. Zelenskyy and Starmer are expected to discuss the possible postwar deployment of British troops in Ukraine as part of a security package if there’s a negotiated settlement. The U.K. government is in intense discussions about a peacekeeping force, despite refusing to say so publicly, according to people familiar with the matter. Still, there’s some resistance from Starmer’s office and elsewhere in government due to security concerns, they said.

“We will work with all the allies to guarantee Ukraine’s security, to guarantee peace and deter any future aggression,” Starmer told reporters in Kyiv when asked about peacekeeping troops. “It is important to put Ukraine in strongest possible position and that’s why finance, military support will also be provided.”

In another sign of the shifting dynamics among Ukraine’s allies, France has led on the issue of peace-keepers, with President Emmanuel Macron stepping up pressure on Starmer including at a meeting in Britain last week.

Starmer’s more muted approach to Ukraine has also been noted by British officials who pointed to his decision last month to send Lammy in his place to a key dinner with Zelenskyy, NATO Secretary General NATO Mark Rutte, Scholz and other European leaders. The officials suggested Starmer’s apparent caution could be put down to being new to government and at times over-reliant on official advice.

There is also confusion in parts of Whitehall about why Starmer has chosen to seek a thaw in ties with China, just as Britain and other allies are accusing Chinese companies of helping to arm Russia’s war effort. Some officials expressed concerns he will side with Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves — a close ally — in an inevitable row between the Treasury and Ministry of Defence on the promise to increase annual defense spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product from about 2.3% currently.

In a time of stretched public finances that have been put under further strain by a recent rise in borrowing costs, Reeves is eyeing cuts to public spending — making more likely she’ll favor a longer timeline to reaching the military spending goal.

“It’s hard to find an area where you can see the footprint of Starmer” in relation to recent Western assistance for Ukraine, Lutsevych said.

—With assistance from Aliaksandr Kudrytski and Olesia Safronova.