Donald Trump’s talks with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine have echoes of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of the Nazis in 1938, Sir Ben Wallace has said.

On Wednesday night, Mr Trump and Putin held a 90-minute phone call in which it was agreed that they would “immediately” begin peace negotiations.

The call has prompted concerns that whatever negotiations the two devise will be favourable to Moscow, with Ukraine and Europe frozen out of talks.

Sir Ben, a former defence secretary, said that if Mr Trump was seen to capitulate to the Kremlin as world leaders gathered for the Munich Security Conference this weekend, it would be a repeat of Chamberlain’s “peace for our time” moment.

Writing for The Telegraph, he said: “Munich’s motto is ‘peace through dialogue’, but it has proven itself in recent years to also be a forceful bastion of European resistance against Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

“What a shame, then, that this year’s gathering seems set to mirror the disastrous conference of 1938 where the continent stood blind in the face of Hitler’s duplicity. The stench of appeasement is once again returning to Munich.

“After Chamberlain returned to Britain in 1938 having signed an agreement with Adolf Hitler, he proclaimed ‘peace for our time’. Winston Churchill then rebutted that ‘you were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war’. 

“The same fate awaits the West, whether in the Taiwan strait, Iran, or elsewhere in Europe, if it fails to stand strong now. And like 87 years ago, it will have its roots in Munich.”