(BSS/AFP) - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted on Thursday that any agreement to end fighting in Ukraine would need to be "defended" to stop Russia from violating it.

"If there`s a deal, it has to be defended, because there (have) been deals in the past that haven`t had security arrangements and Putin`s taken no notice of them," Starmer told Sky News before he was due to address a meeting of military planners from dozens of countries.