Who can bring Putin to the negotiating table? The response from London rejects the comparison between two major wars, but points to an exception
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – NOVEMBER 4, 2025: Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey, arrives at Downing Street to attend the weekly British Cabinet meeting. PHOTO: Rasid Necati Aslim / AFP / Profimedia
A senior official in London has provided an update on the efforts of the “Coalition of the Will” to secure a lasting peace in Ukraine once the fighting stops.
British Defense Secretary John Healey insisted on Wednesday that US President Donald Trump is capable of persuading his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to join peace talks over the war in Ukraine, even as negotiations continue to stall.
Asked by Politico whether a truce in Ukraine is more difficult to achieve than the one in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas, Healey replied that a comparison cannot be made between the two situations – with one exception.
“President Trump is the person who can bring Putin to the negotiating table and who can end the conflict,” the British secretary said on a flight from Norway to Paris on his way to a meeting with the new French defense minister. Trump played a key role in negotiating the shaky truce between the Jewish state and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Healey stressed that the work of the “Coalition of the Will” (“coalition of the willing”) – Ukraine's allies who have pledged to provide security in the event of a ceasefire – is “regularly renewed so that we can really feel that we are ready, when peace comes, to step in and help secure it”.
The headquarters of the “Coalition of the Will” is now operational in Paris and includes senior British military personnel.
Healey made the remarks after a meeting of the Joint Expeditionary Force in Bodø, a town in Norway, where members of the “coalition of volunteers” signed a new partnership with Ukraine.
Putin has not taken a step back since the planned meeting with Trump in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, was canceled and the US president decided to sanction Russia's two largest oil companies – Lukoil and Rosneft. Since then, tensions between the US and Russia have only increased, with both sides threatening to resume nuclear weapons tests.
During his recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said Beijing and Washington were working together to end the war in Ukraine, but “sometimes, you have to let (the adversaries, no) fight.”
