BRITISH ministers are “foolish and cynical” to encourage Ukraine’s pursuit of Nato membership as a supposed means to end the war, a leading peace campaigner charged today.

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden said Ukraine would be “free to make decisions about its own future” when asked about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s suggestion at the weekend that Ukraine could cede territory to Russia but gain membership of the US-led alliance as part of a peace deal.

Mr Zelensky’s remarks were the first time he has acknowledged the possibility of surrendering territory.

Mr McFadden said: “I don’t know whether Ukraine will be part of Nato or not in the future.”

But Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German said that “for the Labour government to endorse Zelensky’s view that Nato membership is the way to end the war is foolish and cynical … as it knows one reason for the conflict was precisely this.

“Nato expansion has made eastern Europe more dangerous.”

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s recently published memoirs have defended her decision to block a pathway to Nato membership for Ukraine and Georgia in 2008, arguing this would have precipitated war earlier. Russia had warned from the early 2000s that it considered Nato membership for Ukraine a threat.

“Zelensky is desperately trying to get a favourable deal with [incoming US president Donald] Trump but given that … one of [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin’s main points of opposition is to Ukraine joining Nato, it is unlikely to pan out that way.

“Zelensky also has to deal with the growing unpopularity of the war and the discontent among troops, where desertions are growing rapidly,” Ms German observed. “We need peace negotiations now. “