Former UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace says the White House has indicated that other Western countries will not be invited to potential peace talks.
Ex-Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is advocating for the inclusion of a “European power” that is significantly invested in the situation in any upcoming peace summit involving Russia, the US, and Ukraine.
The Kremlin has stated that a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and former US President Donald Trump is expected “in the coming days.”
Washington hopes this meeting could pave the way for a trilateral US-Russia-Ukraine peace summit, but Putin believes that the conditions for a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky are not yet in place “far off.”
Wallace stated in a Times Radio interview on Thursday that “It’s been made clear already by the White House that Europeans won’t be invited.”
He insisted that nations that “have skin in the game” should participate in the “peacemaking process.”
He added that considering there are two other nuclear powers in NATO – France and Britain – it is important that a European power be present in the room.
Wallace, who served as the UK defense secretary from 2019 to 2023, has consistently pushed for the UK to supply military aid to Ukraine, a move Moscow views as making the UK a party to the conflict.
France and the UK have been increasingly advocating for the deployment of ‘peacekeeping troops’ to assist Ukraine’s struggling ground forces in the event of a ceasefire, as part of a ‘coalition of the willing’. Russia has stated that it would consider such a move a military intervention and has warned that any NATO troops would be regarded as hostile.
Moscow views Kiev’s desire to join the US-led military alliance as a primary cause of the conflict and insists that Ukraine maintain a neutral status outside of NATO as a key condition for peace.
Wallace doubts that Western European countries would accept any of Moscow’s demands for peace.
The UK’s interference has been previously blamed for disrupting peace negotiations, notably when then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly discouraged Kiev from pursuing early negotiations with Moscow in 2022, according to David Arakhamia, who was the Ukrainian head negotiator at the time.