Prime Minister Keir Starmer (centre) hosts the European leaders’ summit to discuss Ukraine, at Lancaster House, London, March 2, 2025
PEACE campaigners slammed the continued rise in British military spending today as Sir Keir Starmer said Britain was ready to send troops to police a Ukrainian peace.
The Prime Minister hosted a summit at London’s Lancaster House today with European leaders, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte and the presidents of the European Commission and European Council, all showing their support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who also attended.
The summit followed an extraordinary row between Mr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance last week at the White House.
The US was not represented at the summit — underlining the deepening rift between European leaders and Washington.
Sir Keir told leaders it was time for them to step up and continue to support Kiev and meet a “once in a generation moment” for the security of Europe.
After the meeting he said a “coalition of the willing” could be sent to Ukraine to police a ceasefire, with British “troops on the ground and planes in the air,” but acknowledged that not all countries present had been willing to commit. He did not say which had and which hadn’t.
As Los Angeles battles historic wildfires, residents are demanding accountability for why the city’s fire department faced budget cuts while greater disaster preparedness measures were overlooked. These frustrations have fueled questions about the prioritization of aid to Israel and Ukraine.
Just months before the wildfires ravaged the city, LA Mayor Karen Bass approved the budget for the next fiscal year, which included a $17.5 million reduction to the fire department’s funding. The department’s budget slashed to $819.64 million, prompted warnings from Fire Chief Kristin Crowley, who cautioned that the cuts were already impeding emergency response capabilities.
All of this comes amid a revelation that the State of California has sent approximately $610 million in taxpayer funds to Israel, making it the most significant state contributor to Israeli aid in the U.S. This disparity gained attention online after Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson suggested imposing conditions on federal disaster relief for Los Angeles.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has been a staunch advocate of unconditional aid for Israel, notably championing a $74 billion aid package in April 2024 that included $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel, despite mounting public and congressional pressure to curtail such transfers. Specifically, the Leahy Law, named after its author, former Senator Patrick Leahy, prohibits the transfer of military aid to nations credibly accused of committing human rights abuses. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Leahy urged that the law be applied to Israel, arguing that ongoing rights violations demand accountability and adherence to U.S. legal standards.
In October 2024, U.S. President Joe Biden drafted a $100 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel—a striking coincidence, as this is the same amount now proposed to confront the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. The announcement of a one-time payment of $770 to each wildfire victim by the administration has drawn mixed reactions, with some calling it a necessary gesture while others see it as woefully inadequate. This announcement came mere days after the White House informed Congress of its intention to send an additional $8 billion in military aid to Israel.
Although the aid package isn’t a cash handout to Israelis, the cost of the military aid package would be the equivalent of handing each Israeli over $820. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid in history, amounting to a total of over $250 billion in American taxpayers’ dollars, at least $25 billion of which has been publicly disclosed to have been sent since the beginning of the war in Gaza. At a time when U.S. domestic crises demand urgent attention, the government’s unwavering commitment to foreign aid for Israel continues unabated.
The concern extends beyond monetary figures. Cities across the U.S. struggle to provide safe drinking water, veterans face mounting suicides due to inadequate access to healthcare, and Los Angeles grapples with a homelessness crisis. Experts estimate that $22 billion—roughly equivalent to the aid Israel received in a year—could eliminate homelessness in LA over the course of a decade. Meanwhile, Israelis enjoy clean drinking water year-round and are even expanding their control to include six key water sources in southern Syria, in contravention of international law.
Feature photo | Locals help a firefighter stretch a hose as an apartment building burns, Jan. 8, 2025, in the Altadena section of Pasadena, Calif. Chris Pizzello | AP
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.
The Kremlin fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine on Thursday in response to Kyiv’s use this week of American and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russia, President Vladimir Putin said.
In a televised address to the country, the Russian president warned that U.S. air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile, which he said flies at ten times the speed of sound and which he called the Oreshnik — Russian for hazelnut tree. He also said it could be used to attack any Ukrainian ally whose missiles are used to attack Russia.
“We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against military facilities of the countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities,” Putin said in his first comments since President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the green light this month to use U.S. ATACMS missiles to strike at limited targets inside Russia.
Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh confirmed that Russia’s missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate range missile based on it’s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.
“This was new type of lethal capability that was deployed on the battlefield, so that was certainly of concern,” Singh said, noting that the missile could carry either conventional or nuclear warheads. The U.S. was notified ahead of the launch through nuclear risk reduction channels, she said.
Zelensky meets Starmer and NATO secretary general Mark Rutte. (Photo: Simon Dawson / No 10 handout)
British aid is being used to open up Ukraine’s wrecked economy to foreign investors and enhance trade with the UK.
Amid the devastating war in Ukraine, British economic aid to the country is focused on promoting pro-private sector reforms and on pressing the government to open up its economy to foreign investors.
Recently-published Foreign Office documents on its flagship aid project in Ukraine, which supports privatisation, note that the war provides “opportunities” for Ukraine delivering on “some hugely important reforms”.
The government in Kyiv has in recent months been responding positively to these calls. Last month, president Volodymyr Zelensky signed a new law expanding the privatisation of state-owned banks in the country.
It follows the Ukrainian government’s announcement in July of its ‘Large-Scale Privatisation 2024’ programme that is intended to drive foreign investment into the country and raise money for Ukraine’s struggling national budget, not least to fight Russia.
Large assets slated for privatisation currently include the country’s biggest producer of titanium ore, a leading producer of concrete products and a mining and processing plant.
Ukraine envisaged privatising the country’s roughly 3,500 state-owned enterprises in a law of 2018, which said foreign citizens and companies could become owners.
The process stalled as a result of coronavirus and then Russia’s invasion in February 2022. But hundreds of smaller-scale enterprises are now being privatised, bringing in revenues of UAH 9.6bn (£181m) in the past two years.
“The resumption of privatisation amid the full-scale war is an important step, which is already yielding results,” Ukraine’s economy minister Yulia Svyrydenko said last month.
Another law enacted in June 2023 allows large-scale assets to be sold to foreigners or Ukrainians during the current martial law regime.
President Joe Biden (right) listens as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (left) speaks during their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, September 26, 2024
IT SCARCELY gets more dangerous than this. The semi-senile President of the United States has determined to use his remaining months in office to dramatically ratchet up the war in Ukraine.
Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to fire US-supplied missiles deep into Russia, permission it has hitherto withheld, is a major step towards extending the conflict into an actual face-off between the world’s two major nuclear-armed powers.
Since the missiles concerned cannot easily be operated without full US logistical, intelligence and targeting support, this takes the prolonged proxy war much closer to a direct clash.
Biden’s move looks likely to be echoed, as ever, by Keir Starmer, who has been prevented by Washington from allowing Ukraine to use British Storm Shadow missiles to hit targets inside Russia. Those restrictions may now be cast aside.
Starmer is talking of “doubling down” on the war at the precise moment when hopes for an end to a bloody and unnecessary conflict should be rising.
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The people must press for peace in Ukraine as a matter of urgency, on the basis of stable security for all. That is already the demand of most of the world’s nations, and it must be imposed on Labour’s warlords.
