Sir Keir Starmer has accused Vladimir Putin of playing games by delaying a ceasefire deal.

On Saturday, the Prime Minister is expected to convene a virtual meeting of 25 leaders from the EU, Nato and further afield to demand that they make concrete commitments to support Kyiv in the wake of Russia’s “delaying tactics”.

Ahead of the gathering, he said that Putin was “not serious about peace” and that the Russian president was showing a disregard for Donald Trump’s ceasefire proposal.

Sir Keir will urge the “coalition of the willing”, the countries that have agreed to play a part in a future peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, to “strain every sinew” to increase economic pressure on Moscow and force Putin into negotiations.

Putin said on Thursday that while he supported the “idea” of a ceasefire, he would only agree to one on his own terms. Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, visited Moscow this week and a phone call is expected between the US president and Putin in the coming days.

On Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of dragging out talks on a ceasefire to enable it to make advances on the front line. The Ukrainian president’s comments came as Russian missiles hit a residential area in his home town of Kryvyi Rih.

Putin says that his army is advancing across “practically” the entire front line and claims that his soldiers have encircled thousands of Ukrainian troops inside Russia’s Kursk region.