PM’s top security adviser says Europe faces hard winter to keep pressure on Putin

Speaking at the Yalta European Strategy forum, Powell said pressure on Putin was working “and that means we have to keep the pressure up”.

He said: “What we don’t want to do at this stage is take our foot off the gas – and literally, gas could be the problem as we come into the winter, where the EU is going to have real problems of shortage, and we cannot turn that into an advantage for Putin.

“It will require some real hardship and difficulties on our parts. But we will have to swallow that and we have to keep the economic, military, political and diplomatic support going for Ukraine.”

Powell said things in Ukraine did “feel a bit difficult at the moment”. He pointed to Russian jet drone attacks, strikes on Ukrainian businesses, the lack of Patriot air defences against ballistic missiles, and the government’s budget deficit.

But he insisted “there are strong reasons for optimism”. He said Trump – who has blown hot and cold over Ukraine – was “in a very different place”.

“He sees that Ukraine is doing better, and therefore he is not leaning in the direction of Putin in the way that he was previously. I think that’s a really big asset.”

Powell said Russia was no longer claiming the US had agreed, at last year’s Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, that Ukraine should give up territory and Nato membership.

“The so-called Anchorage compromise is firmly dead,” Powell said. “That’s gone. We can stop worrying about it. It’s finished. I think that’s a really important reason to be positive, because now we can look for serious ways of getting to a negotiated settlement, rather than waiting for the Ukrainian people to hand over territory the Russians have not been able to conquer.”

He also pointed to Ukrainian commanders’ success in holding the front line, the milestone of Russia suffering 1.5 million casualties since 2022, Ukraine’s strikes deep in Russian territory and the fact “Europe has remained solid”.

He said: “The strategy is to apply enough pressure to make [Putin] want to get into negotiation. And I think that the escalation we hear talk about is not a problem; it’s a sign of success, because what’s happening is the pressure that we are putting on Putin is finally paying off.”

Putin himself has given little sign he is feeling under pressure, telling journalists earlier this month: “I have no doubt that the enemy will crumble.”

Meanwhile Ukrainian authorities have begun evacuating some residents in Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, the biggest cities still under full Ukrainian control in the eastern Donbas region. The full capture of Donbas, made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, is a key objective for Russia.

Powell said it was “mug’s game” to predict when the war might end but he said Europe had to be prepared to negotiate a settlement: “You have to be ready for one, and at some stage, where we least expect it, Putin will be ready to negotiate… It’s all about getting him to be serious in that negotiation. And I think that strategy is beginning to work.”

Powell, who helped negotiate the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, said it was “very important to maintain contact with Putin and the Russians”.

He said: “What we don’t want is miscalculation – that they don’t understand where our red lines are. That’s why I think it’s important the CIA went to Moscow as well. I think we need to keep talking. I wrote a book called ‘Talking to Terrorists’. I would certainly be in favour of talking to this terrorist as well – to try and maintain communication.”

The war was “not about territory” but about “the right of Ukraine to be independent”, Powell added, and “to the extent that [Putin] gains another 10km of land or loses another 40km of land, this war is already won”.

He added: “That’s the threat to him at home. There is a free, independent, and European Ukraine, and people in Russia are going to notice that.”