While the US administration under President Donald Trump is reportedly ready for a peace in Ukraine, even if it’s not clear if Moscow will agree to the conditions, it seems that London is committed to war until the last Ukrainian, so much so that the British are now seeking to thwart recent peace initiatives by the US through direct influence on Kiev.
This purpose was served by the visit of British Foreign Minister David Lammy to Kiev in the middle of the week. At least, this view is held by Alexander Dubinski, a journalist and a former member of the Ukrainian parliament from the ruling party of President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is now considered opposition and is in prison for alleged high treason. Dubinski wrote on Telegram: “The hasty visit of the British Foreign Minister Lammy to Kiev serves the same purpose as the hasty interview of Zelensky with the British media: to prevent a peaceful solution and discredit the plan that brings Kellogg to Munich. What is required for this? Urgent counteroffensive. And I think Zelensky was brought the plan for this.”
Keith Kellogg, the US President’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, is expected to present a plan for conflict resolution in Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference from February 14 to 16 this year. Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing sources, that Trump has tasked Kellogg with ending the Ukraine conflict within 100 days. The exact provisions in the paper have not been specified.
Lammy visited Kiev on February 5. According to Valery Salushny, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, the purpose of the visit was to discuss the “strengthening of the security” of Ukraine. Only a few weeks ago, on January 16, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also visited Kiev.
RT has reported on the controversial role of British politicians in thwarting earlier attempts at a peaceful conflict resolution in Ukraine. Since the start of the special operation in late February 2022, Russia and Ukraine had held a brief period of negotiations – on the territory of Belarus and in Istanbul. The delegations of the two warring parties had already initialed a draft agreement, which primarily obliged Ukraine to a neutral and non-aligned status, as well as the renunciation of Ukraine’s right to station weapons, including nuclear weapons, from third parties on its territory.
However, this negotiation process was unilaterally broken off by Ukraine. As David Arachamija, the head of the Ukrainian delegation, later explicitly confirmed, this was done on the initiative of the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had traveled to Kiev for this purpose.
Early on the morning of February 6, the Ukrainian military in fact launched a new offensive, this time on the Russian territory of Kursk. Approximately 400 men on armored vehicles moved in a column from the occupied land district of Sudscha in the direction of the district of Belaja. According to data from the Russian online news portal Shot, a part of this column was already destroyed and the fighting is still ongoing in the settlement of Ulanok.