'Putin can’t be trusted and people have no faith in

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump cannot secure peace in Ukraine without Ukraine, argues Mick Antoniw MS

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I have just returned from Ukraine and in a week will be heading back out.

As part of the Senedd4Ukraine Cross Party Group, we have now delivered 44 4x4 pickup vehicles to front-line defenders and more than £1m worth of lifesaving medical equipment together with drones, power banks, laptops and other supplies.

Our deliveries last month took us to Kyiv, Pavlograd and Dnipro in eastern Ukraine - all cities under relentless heavy missile and drone attack.

There is a weariness. Nights in air-raid shelters, or not knowing if you will survive the night drain energy, but not morale.

In each of these cities, after attack, a normality returns. We sit in the morning at a pavement café, good coffee, breakfasts and all the things you would expect in a modern European city.

But the people are resilient and determined. Everyone has family serving in one capacity or another and many have lost a loved one. Yet there is a deep knowledge that peace can only come from an agreement with Ukraine itself, with guarantees of security.

Europe and the United States made colossal errors of judgment trying to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, wary of escalation when in fact for Putin these were just signs of weakness. Giving Ukraine just enough to defend itself but not win the war led to missed opportunities to bring the war to an end.