Keir Starmer’s call on Sunday afternoon with key European allies of Ukraine was a blend of trauma support group and an urgent damage limitation exercise. Today the group will provide a visible support network around an embattled Volodymyr Zelensky as he faces showdown talks with Donald Trump over the terms of a peace deal on Ukraine.

Team Europe is inspired by the famous Three Musketeers rallying cry: “all for one and one for all”: as the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and the EU Commission as well as the Nato Secretary General flank Zelensky to show joint support and take the sting out of an Alaska summit which has played decisively to President Putin’s advantage.

This remains a dismal outlook for Kyiv – and testing for a British Prime Minister who has thrown himself behind

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