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For Vladimir Putin, peace talks with Ukraine are war pursued by other means. That is why progress has been so slow in negotiations, which resumed in Geneva this week. The Russian president demands the surrender of territory that his army has failed so far to win in combat. Since Mr Putin cannot be trusted to honour any agreement, Volodymyr Zelenskyy rightly insists on robust security guarantees. The Kremlin remains committed to restoring national pride through territorial expansion. Mr Putin might accept a lull in the Ukraine conflict, but only to regroup. He must be deterred from resuming a campaign aimed at extinguishing Ukraine’s sovereignty.
His country’s economy and propaganda apparatus are increasingly oriented towards sustaining a long war. He has shown little sign of abandoning efforts to weaken Nato and punish European democracies for backing Kyiv. The intent is signalled by a campaign of constant provocations: sabotage, maritime and air incursions, cyber-attacks and online disinformation.
Sir Keir Starmer addressed the dangers in a speech last week at the Munich security conference, urging fellow European nations to accelerate defence and security cooperation. The prime minister rejected the Brexit ethos of detachment from Britain’s continental allies. “There is no British security without Europe, and no European security without Britain,” he said.
The speech was an important clarification of the UK’s geopolitical interests at a time when domestic politics is too often addled with Brexit delusions. But there is a gap between Sir Keir’s ambition and its realisation. Defence and security cooperation was a foundational pillar of the “reset” in UK-EU relations agreed in a summit last May. Britain was supposed to join the Security Action for Europe (Safe) programme – a €140bn (£122bn) investment fund to accelerate continental defence spending. In November, negotiations broke down over the size of the UK’s financial contribution. Failure to reach agreement on a matter of such obvious mutual interest was humiliating for both sides.
There is also a domestic mismatch between the prime minister’s rhetorical urgency on security matters and the rate of government action. Last June, Sir Keir committed to raise defence spending to 5% of GDP – a collective Nato target – by 2035. Last week, he said Britain would have to “go faster”, although he did not specify sums and dates.
In this context, national security is broadly defined to include civil resilience. It is not simply a matter of diverting resources from peacetime public services into rearmament. Defence investment should itself expand economic capacity, generating growth that reshapes the fiscal arithmetic. But such investments take time to bear fruit, while the chancellor remains preoccupied with self-imposed metrics. Budget wrangling is the reason why a defence investment plan, due last year, has yet to materialise.
It is a familiar story: a prime minister sounding purposeful in speeches without confronting the difficult trade-offs required to turn bold pledges into action. Sir Keir deserves credit for articulating the geopolitical challenge posed by Russia and the obvious response – stepping up cooperation with our continental allies. Since taking office, the prime minister has been slowly grappling with the strategic blunder of Brexit, only recently daring to describe it in those terms. He must now act with the urgency implied by his own rhetoric.
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