This peace' deal could lead to a bigger conflict says Hague

THERE is a "huge danger" that a bad peace deal for Ukraine will risk another war, William Hague has warned.

- Steph Spyro

The former Conservative leader and Foreign Secretary made the comments as the US and Russia agreed to "lay the groundwork" for ending the conflict in Ukraine at a meeting in Saudi Arabia.

But Europe and Ukraine were barred from yesterday's four-and-ahalf hour talks in Riyadh between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio Russian Foreign Minister and Sergei Lavrov.

Lord Hague said: "There's a great danger. We see it all through history, that the way in which you settle one war can, if you're not careful, lead to a bigger war later.

"It leaves both sides with an incentive to go back to fighting - a humiliated side that needs to recover its dignity and territory and a victorious side that thinks it can come back for more."

He warned: "There's a huge danger here, that this is the prelude to a wider war. And Donald Trump and his team are not really showing the awareness of that. So that's the biggest worry in this whole thing."

Mr Rubio called the first high-level talks on the conflict since the early months of Vladimir Putin's invasion in 2022 the "first step of a long and difficult journey".

While US national security adviser Mike Waltz, who accompanied Mr Rubio and President Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff to the talks, insisted: "This needs to be a permanent end to the war and not a temporary end as we've seen in the past."