UK PM Starmer offers to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Sunday he was ready to send British troops to Ukraine as part of any postwar peacekeeping force as talks aimed at ending the conflict were set to begin this week.

Starmer said he had not taken the decision to consider putting British servicemen and women "in harm's way" lightly, but securing a lasting peace in Ukraine was essential to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from further aggression.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday said Ukraine and Europe would be part of any "real negotiations" to end Moscow's war, signaling that U.S. talks with Russia this week were a chance to see how serious Putin is about peace.

The end of Russia's war with Ukraine "when it comes, cannot merely become a temporary pause before Putin attacks again," Starmer wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Starmer is expected to join German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and other European leaders in Paris after French President Emmanuel Macron convened the talks on Ukraine.

U.S. President Donald Trump stunned European allies in NATO and Ukraine last week when he announced he had held a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin without consulting with them and would start a peace process. Trump's Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, then suggested Ukraine and other European leaders would have no place at peace negotiations.

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)