Keir Starmer has called on European leaders to put more economic pressure on Russia, saying Donald Trump’s threat of sanctions has left Vladimir Putin “rattled”.
Before a meeting in Brussels on Monday, the prime minister said it was necessary to “see all allies stepping up – particularly in Europe” when it comes to inflicting economic harm on Russia, and argued it would help bring about peace by ending the Ukraine war sooner.
“President Trump has threatened more sanctions on Russia and it’s clear that’s got Putin rattled. We know that he’s worried about the state of the Russian economy,” Starmer said.
“I’m here to work with our European partners on keeping up the pressure, targeting the energy revenues and the companies supplying his missile factories to crush Putin’s war machine. Because ultimately, alongside our military support, that is what will bring peace closer.”
Trump said last month he would impose high tariffs and further sanctions on Russia if Putin failed to end the war in Ukraine. He had claimed before the election that he would negotiate an end to the war in just one day.
Writing on his social media platform Truth Social, he said that by pushing to settle the war he was doing Russia and its president a “very big favour”.
The UK believes Putin is facing mounting domestic pressure from inflation and high interest rates as a result of the struggling economy, having ploughed billions into bankrolling the war in Ukraine.
The UK has imposed sanctions on 2,100 Russian individuals and entities, the majority of these since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Sanctions on more than 100 ships for transporting Russian energy, including 93 oil tankers, have had an impact on Russia’s oil industry and damaged its economy.
Starmer is to meet the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Monday before his attendance at an informal European defence cooperation meeting.
Rutte has previously said the west is not ready to deal with the threat of war from Russia, and declared it is “time to shift to a wartime mindset and turbocharge our defence production”.
Starmer has been under pressure to set out a timeline for the UK to meet its target of spending 2.5% of GDP on defence, up from just above 2%, but a number of other Nato countries are also not at this level of spending.
The prime minister discussed Ukraine at a meeting with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Chequers on Sunday. A spokesperson said Starmer had stressed that it was “important to ensure [Ukraine] was in the strongest possible position in the coming months, so that peace could be achieved through strength”.
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Starmer updated Scholz on the government’s strategic defence review, which will be published later this year and will take into account “the need to outmanoeuvre Putin’s ongoing aggression and hostile activity across Europe”.
Alongside the plea on Ukraine, Starmer is expected to set out to European leaders his pitch for an ambitious UK-EU defence and security partnership, including increased cooperation on shared threats, cross-border crime and illegal migration.
Starmer visited Ukraine for the first time as prime minister in mid-January, announcing a “historic” 100-year partnership and saying the UK would support the country “beyond this terrible war” and into a future where it is “free and thriving again”.
At the time, he said the unprecedented agreement reflected the “huge affection between our two nations”. He said that “right now Putin shows no signs of wanting to stop” his “unrelenting aggression”.
The UK-Ukraine agreement includes £3bn of British support a year, to be continued indefinitely. Starmer said the UK would increase training for Ukrainian soldiers, provide mobile air defence systems and send 150 artillery barrels made by Sheffield Forgemasters – the first to be produced in 20 years.
