Vladimir Putin’s top diplomat has indirectly dismissed Keir Starmer’s idea to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine. Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov attacked European leaders who are still supporting Ukraine three years after Putin launched his brutal invasion.

If there is a cease-fire without a backstop, it will simply give him the opportunity to wait and to come again,” Keir Starmer warned on the flight to Washington, D.C.

The prime minister wants to keep everyone happy. He has been loath to criticize Trump, has warmed up Britain’s post-Brexit partnership with the European Union, avowedly backed Kyiv and thawed ties with China. At a time of geopolitical upheaval, he is attempting to squeeze Britain into an impossibly tight Venn diagram.