UK Defence Secretary states UK will not push Ukraine to unjust peace

UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has said that London will never pressure Ukraine to negotiate a peace deal with Russia, as the decision to do so is Ukraine's alone.

As reported by Politico, Shapps' comments were in response to a Sunday Times article citing sources that UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron had supposedly been convincing Trump that new US aid would help Ukraine hold the front line and create the conditions for both sides to be interested in negotiating an end to the war.

"There is just no sense at all in which Britain would try to persuade, strong-arm or otherwise, Ukraine into accepting giving up some of their territory. That's a decision entirely for Ukraine," he said.

"It's right that we provide both the military assistance and the moral clarity that it is always unacceptable for an autocrat to walk into a neighbouring democratic country. We should stand behind them [Ukraine] fully in order to eject Russia from all of their territory."

When asked about these rumours in the press, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he had not read the article, but stressed that London's position had not changed and that "Putin must be defeated".

Also on Tuesday, it became known that a delegation from the Labour Party, which is predicted to win the next parliamentary elections in the UK, arrived in Kyiv. Its officials responsible for defence and foreign affairs assured that the party was determined to continue supporting Ukraine.

In early May, UK Foreign Minister David Cameron said that Ukraine had the right to use the weapons provided by London to strike targets in Russia.