Lammy says Ukraine failing now could cost UK billions

David Lammy has warned that failure to deal with Russia over Ukraine would cost the UK billions, as the US said Europe would be excluded from talks over the country’s future.

- KATE DEVLIN

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the foreign secretary said Ukraine had an “irreversible pathway towards Nato” and pointed to the approximate 7 per cent of gross domestic product that countries spent on defence in the Cold War, against the current UK rate of 2.3 per cent.

“Don’t think that not meeting the challenge now somehow saves us money down the line,” Mr Lammy said on Saturday. “If Ukraine were to fail, the costs would be considerably more.”

And he called on Donald Trump, who famously wrote a book titled The Art of the Deal, to realise a good “deal” was working with Ukraine.

At the same conference, the US president’s special envoy for Ukraine revealed Europe would be consulted but ultimately excluded during peace talks.

Asked if they would be present, Keith Kellogg said he was from “the school of realism, and that is not going to happen”.