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Defence secretary John Healey addressed concerns the US could waver in its support for Ukraine against Russia if Donald Trump was re-elected this morning.
Trump, now officially the Republican presidential nominee, vowed to end its war at the Republican National Convention this week.
He has not explained how he would do that, but there are fears he may offer Ukrainian land to Vladimir Putin to bring the conflict to a close.
Speaking to Times Radio, defence secretary John Healey said he did not know what Trump meant by his promises, but added: “It’s in America’s best interests that Europe is secure, Nato is strong and it’s an American’s best interest that Putin does not win in Ukraine.
“Because if he does win, he won’t stop in Ukraine.”
Presenter Kait Borsay suggested Trump could offer the Ukrainian land Russia has illegally annexed to Moscow, permanently.
She asked: “Where is your dividing line here, I guess on this?”
Healey said it was the Ukrainians who are fighting, so it was “for them to decide when they stop”.
He said that supporting president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine was his “first priority”, adding that the UK will provide military aid to Ukraine “for every year for the rest of the decade. As long as it takes.”
He also claimed that Starmer’s government “has stepped up extra support”.
Borsay said: “You’re saying that you will unequivocally back Ukraine, the war may go on indefinitely, it may go on for years, it could even go on for decades.
“Does that sit comfortably with you? That you are not putting any time limit on this, that you are prepared to back Ukraine for years, for decades?”
Healey said: “Putin could end this today if he withdrew his forces, forces that have illegally invaded a sovereign country.”
Borsay then pushed to ask if this meant the UK would be out of step with Trump’s plans if he were to be elected on a second presidency.
The defence secretary said the US has “demonstrated outstanding global leadership” with the conflict in Ukraine, saying that was a “tribute to President Biden and his team”.
He said: “It will be, in the end, for the American people to decide who their president is after November.
“But for any president whose first interest is America’s interests, then the argument to them is that if Putin prevails in Ukraine, Europe is less secure, and it directly – in America’s interests – that big, aggressive, autocratic states do not see that they can get away with redrawing sovereign boundaries in the way that Russia is trying to do.”
The head of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, also mentioned the concern that Trump could severe connections to the defence alliance this week.
He urged European leaders to negotiate with Trump if he won another term, saying: “I think it’s important not to create self-fulfilling prophecies in a way that assuming that a new administration in the US will mean the end of Nato.
“There were concerns about that also in 2016. The reality was that Nato is stronger after four years … more troops, high readiness.”
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