Inside the delicate negotiations for a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire

Defence ministers, national security advisers and European leaders worked tirelessly behind the scenes to secure an agreement – now the ball is in Putin’s court.

John Healey, the defence secretary, centre, has been one of those working to reconcile the interests of Sir Keir Starmer and presidents Trump, Zelensky and Macron

It was getting late at Hotel de Brienne, the official residence of France’s defence minister in the heart of Paris.

John Healey, Britain’s defence secretary, and his French counterpart, Sebastien Lecornu, below, still had much to discuss.

After more than three years of the war in Ukraine had come a breakthrough, with the crystallising of a plan for peace. But for Europe, the hard work of guaranteeing any peace at the end of a deal was only just beginning.

The pair retired to a side room for a tete-a-tete, over a glass of French cognac. “They were feeling positive but then there was this determination to immediately speed up our work as European nations. We need to protect Ukraine. Britain and France want to spearhead this,” an inside source said.

The mood had lifted earlier in the evening, from one of nervousness over what the future would hold to one of cautious optimism.

As the waiters had served them gravadlax, poultry supreme with pressed potatoes and morel mushrooms, followed by a French cheese course and lemon and basil tarts, news trickled in from Jeddah, the Saudi Arabian port city on the Red Sea.

Ukraine had said it was ready to accept an immediate 30-day ceasefire in the war with Russia, after high-stakes talks that had lasted into the evening. President Trump had lifted the ban on intelligence sharing with Kyiv and military aid would resume.

Earlier in the day, more than 30 defence chiefs had gathered in the French capital to work up detailed military plans for a European-led peacekeeping force. The talks came amid concerns that the decades-old NATO alliance had been weakened by Trump declaring he would not protect countries that did not pay for their defence. “Perhaps our enemies begin to see the cracks,” the retired US general Ben Hodges said.

The meeting between Healey and Lecornu lasted much longer than aides expected. Nearly three hours later, Healey was driven to the British ambassador’s residence, Hotel de Charost, bought by the Duke of Wellington from Pauline Leclerc, Napoleon Bonaparte’s sister.

Britain had been “intimately involved” behind the scenes to help the US and Ukraine secure the breakthrough, according to UK government sources.

Jonathan Powell, the prime minister’s national security adviser, was dispatched to Kyiv to meet President Zelensky and his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, over the weekend to work on a written proposal to bridge the gap between the two warring sides.

They discussed a ceasefire, an exchange of prisoners of war, the release of detained civilians and the return of stolen children.

The proposal set out how the ceasefire could lead on to a staged process of negotiations to bring about a “just and lasting peace”. Sir Keir Starmer was kept updated throughout.

Powell, a seasoned diplomat and political strategist, also worked with Mike Waltz, the US national security adviser, as well as their French and German counterparts on preparations for the meeting in Jeddah, including a plan for a peace process starting with a ceasefire.

Some insiders say Waltz is far more important than people realise, and that Powell had done the “hard yards” by meeting him during the transition period, before Trump was sworn in as president.

America and Ukraine agreed on the proposal and it set the stage for the talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. The US announcement that intelligence sharing and military aid was back was met with relief across European capitals. “It’s good news – thanks to the UK’s amazing efforts,” one Ukrainian diplomat said.

Starmer messaged Trump and Zelensky to congratulate them on the agreement. It was a “remarkable breakthrough”, Starmer said. He added: “The ball is now in the Russian court.”

Meanwhile Europe was keen to show it was taking its commitment to guaranteeing Ukrainian security – and its own security – seriously.

At an E5 summit in Paris yesterday (Wednesday), Healey and Lecornu met their German, Italian and Polish counterparts to discuss bolstering their defences and providing security guarantees to Ukraine. “Without Ukraine, it is the whole of the European continent at stake,” Lecornu warned at the Val-de-Grace chapel.

Guido Crosetto, the Italian defence minister, said: “We are at a key moment in time. None of us could have guessed we could have got good news yesterday (Wednesday), that was quite unexpected, but now it is up to Putin to decide.”

Healey echoed Crosetto, saying: “I say to President Putin, over to you now. You said you want to talk, prove it. Accept the ceasefire, start negotiations and end the war.”

Over the coming days, diplomatic efforts to help Ukraine will continue elsewhere. David Lammy, the foreign secretary, will meet G7 foreign ministers in Canada, where Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, will debrief them. Powell will be in Washington tomorrow (Friday) with European colleagues to meet Waltz again, the day after Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary-general known as the “Trump whisperer”, meets the US president in the White House.

Healey and Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the defence staff, will be in Ankara today (Thursday) to discuss how Turkey might be able to help with any peacekeeping force, possibly with a role to protect shipping in the Black Sea.

Starmer will then convene European and NATO leaders on Saturday to discuss the next steps. Meanwhile, all eyes are on Putin to see if he is serious about negotiations on a lasting peace – although history suggests he isn’t.

The Times