The 24 hours within which Donald Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine have turned into more than six months of desultory negotiations, and there is still no sign of even a temporary halt to the fighting. This is a blow for the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’, the loose affiliation of 31 countries assembled by Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron to help implement the terms of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. There had first been informal discussions between the UK and France about creating some kind of alliance as early as November 2024, but the Prime Minister formalised the idea in March this year when he hosted a summit in London and committed the coalition to supporting ‘a strong, lasting deal that delivers a permanent peace in Ukraine’.

A peacekeeping or ‘reassur

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