It's over to you, Healey tells Putin as European allies decide ways to shore up potential truce
European allies will accelerate their work to form a Coalition of the Willing to provide security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, John Healey has announced.
The Defence Secretary, who was speaking following a summit of European leaders in Paris, suggested it was now up to Russia to determine such a truce would take effect.
"Over to you," he said, in an indirect address to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"You say you want to talk. Prove it," he said. "Accept the ceasefire, start negotiations and end the war.
"Make no mistake, the pressure is now on Putin."
Mr Healey said European nations would come "ever closer together" in the coming weeks following their discussion of a possible truce between Kyiv and Moscow.
"The UK and France are jointly leading work on planning to drive the push for peace and drive the arrangements for security guarantees for Ukraine," he said.
"We are doing this work together, we are cooperating closely with partner nations, we are looking to build a Coalition of the Willing from Europe and beyond, and from today we are accelerating that work."
France, Germany, Italy and Poland were also at the meeting, with the group known as the E5 nations – the ones that spend the most on defence of European Nato members.
It also saw military chiefs from 34 nations attend.
But at the same press conference, French defence minister Sebastien Lecornu stressed how "the first guarantee of security for Ukraine is the Ukrainian armed forces".
"We cannot ask European troops to do the work of the Ukrainian armed forces," he said.
"This is what we have done since the beginning, we are helping them to defend themselves."
The flurry of activity comes against the background of an apparent breakthrough in talks between the US and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia designed to formulate proposals for a ceasefire.
Kyiv has said it is ready to accept plans for a 30-day immediate ceasefire, and US secretary of state Marco Rubio said his country would "have contact" with Russia.
Mr Rubio said Washington would put the proposals to Moscow directly, adding "the ball is truly in their court" and rejection of the plan would make their intentions clear.
Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said Moscow was still awaiting detailed information on the proposal and it was important not to get ahead regarding how Mr Putin would respond.
Kyiv came under fire from a Russian air attack just hours after Ukraine signalled it would support the ceasefire deal.
Meanwhile, Russia stated that it regained more territory in the western Kursk region of the country, which Ukrainian forces invaded last summer in an attempt to win a bargaining chip for future negotiations.
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