Yvette Cooper signals continued pressure on Moscow after Donald Trump halts a sanctions package days before it was due to take effect, exposing a widening divide over how to force Vladimir Putin to end the war.
Britain has signalled it will continue tightening pressure on Russia despite Donald Trump’s decision to pause a package of sanctions against Moscow, sharpening tensions between Washington and its European allies over support for Ukraine.
Yvette Cooper, the health secretary and former foreign secretary, said the UK took a “different view” from the US president on the need to increase sanctions, two days before the measures were due to come into force.
“We’ve been very clear that Ukraine’s security is also our security,” Cooper told Sky News’s Sunday Morning. “So look, of course, we have taken a different view on the issue of the need to keep increasing sanctions, and we will continue with that.”
Cooper declined to describe Trump’s decision as wrong, stressing instead the need for diplomacy to keep allies united behind Kyiv. Her remarks nevertheless underlined the growing divide over how far Washington should go in using economic pressure to constrain Vladimir Putin.
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The pause has drawn criticism from Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the US of encouraging further Russian aggression.
“The American sanctions blackout, easing pressure on the aggressor, monetary rewards for Putin — all this only encourages him to fight further,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram on Saturday.
Former CIA director David Petraeus said additional US sanctions could help increase pressure on the Kremlin, complementing successive rounds of European Union measures. Without stronger action, he warned, Ukraine could face a difficult winter as Russian attacks threaten electricity and heating supplies.
The dispute comes amid deteriorating US-Ukrainian relations, including concerns over intelligence sharing and restrictions affecting Ukraine’s use of Starlink satellite communications. Elon Musk has said the Trump administration ordered speed limits on Ukraine’s access; Trump has denied doing so.
Kyiv relies on satellite communications to support military operations, including efforts to counter Russian drones and missiles.
Britain has continued to present Ukraine’s security as inseparable from its own and from Europe’s wider defence. Cooper said ministers remained committed to increasing pressure on Moscow while recognising the prime minister’s role in maintaining a united international response.
The immediate question is whether Washington’s retreat from the sanctions package proves temporary — or signals a deeper shift in the transatlantic approach to Russia.
For Kyiv, the stakes are more immediate: whether its allies can maintain economic and military pressure on Putin as another winter threatens Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and civilian population.
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