Trump’s Ukraine call with Putin leaves UK sounding at odds with reality

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s incendiary call with Vladimir Putin, UK ministers and officials have had to do some extraordinary contortions.

There is no greater priority in the UK’s foreign policy than keeping the volatile occupant of the White House on side. And that has meant over the past 24 hours that some pronouncements by the British government have seemed at odds with reality.

In the real world, we have just seen the US president make extraordinary concessions in a call with the Russian president – no return to pre-2014 borders and a dismissal of Ukraine’s hopes of joining Nato.

The response by British ministers is then to say that of course Trump is right to want peace in Ukraine, but the priority is “putting Ukraine in the strongest possible position”.

That makes very little sense just hours after Ukraine’s position was so undermined by Trump’s decision to engage with Putin directly on the terms of a possible peace deal.

Keir Starmer’s spokesperson said there could be “no negotiation about Ukraine without Ukraine”. But that is what the US president has just done.

Officials told journalists that Ukraine was definitely on a path to Nato membership – and that has been agreed by all Nato members including the US. “Nato has made a long-term commitment to Ukraine and its rightful place is in Nato,” Starmer’s spokesperson said.

But again, just a few hours ago, the president had said that no longer applied. The words from his defence secretary are there in black and white. “The United States does not believe that Nato membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” Pete Hegseth said.

At a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels on Thursday, the UK’s John Healey and Hegseth were sat on the same table but merrily existing in parallel universes.

Hegseth said the US no longer “primarily focused” on Europe’s security, an extraordinary moment which if it bears out may be the most consequential shift in US foreign policy since 1945. European leaders just smiled and pretended he had not said what he just said.

Some might say this is nothing new. Leaders are adept at saying one thing in public and another in private. Sometimes it is necessary to continue to insist that black is white.

There will be many European officials who agree privately that Nato membership for Ukraine is difficult, but are prepared to keep saying publicly that it is possible and insisting their US counterparts still agree that it is.

And of course reality is being confronted behind the scenes in Brussels. There are now frantic efforts to make sure that Washington understands that no summit between Trump and Putin can go ahead and that the next step must be to fully involve Ukraine.

It is also true that the sound and fury that emits from the White House does not always translate into reality. Even Hegseth’s speech was considerably toned down from a draft briefed to the press in advance.

But Trump is unique among many world leaders because he does not play by the rules of private versus public. He is fully prepared to just agree something in a phone call with Putin and then post about it on Truth Social.

Speaking at his press conference, Hegseth said starkly that the terms Trump laid out to Putin were just the reality of the situation, and that he was not prepared to pretend that they were not.

All of this is quietly having an effect in Europe. That plain talking on security guarantees – that the US will not send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine – means European nations must now start to talk in realistic terms about what that implies for them.

Starmer has a finer line to tread than most. He knows that he must keep his distance from European leaders when it comes to Trump. Many of the US president’s advisers see him as a dangerous lefty, but Trump himself seems won over by Starmer’s charm offensive so far, which may protect Britain from the worst of his plans for tariffs on the EU.

If he is able to successful straddle loyalties on both sides of the Atlantic, Starmer can be a useful bridge from Europe to Washington. It may even put him in the best position to help Ukraine. But it is never a comfortable position to be in.