UK and France to present Ukraine peace plan to Trump, PM says

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK and France will work with Ukraine "on a plan to stop the fighting" with Russia - and will then "discuss that plan with the United States".

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is attending a summit of European leaders, two days after a fiery exchange with US President Donald Trump in the White House.

Sir Keir told BBC One's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that his "driving purpose" right now was to act as a "bridge" between the two men.

Asked about how he felt watching the spat in the White House, Sir Keir sought to play down the incident, saying "nobody wants to see that" and admitted he felt "uncomfortable".

The PM's response was to pick up the phone to his counterparts Trump and Zelensky that same night, in an effort to "get us back to the central focus", he said.

"There are a number of different routes people can go down. One is to ramp up the rhetoric as to how outraged we all are or not."

He said the other option was to "roll up my sleeves" and quickly phone both men - and then also to speak to French President Emmanuel Macron about the role that the leading nations of Europe would play.

"Because my reaction was we have to bridge this, we have to find a way that we can all work together because in the end we've had three years of bloody conflict now, we need to get to that lasting peace".

Months of faux outrage followed by every European leader going down the road to Canossa

— Odysseas 🇵🇸 (@RealOdysseas) March 1, 2025