Lord Cameron rules out Western boots on ground in Ukraine

Lord Cameron has ruled out Western troops being sent into Ukraine to avoid giving Russian President Vladimir Putin "a target".

The foreign secretary acknowledged that the "war will be lost if the allies don't step up" on the BBC's Ukrainecast podcast.

But asked whether Western nations should send troops into Ukraine, Lord Cameron replied "no".

He added NATO must be in the "best possible shape" by the US elections.

Lord Cameron was speaking at a two-day North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit of 32 foreign ministers in Brussels.

Lord Cameron said he'd be making his second visit to the United States since becoming foreign secretary next week and would be urging Congress to give more financial support, which "could change the narrative" in Ukraine.

The former prime minister said the UK would use the "architecture of NATO" to deliver support to Ukraine but drew a distinction between a NATO mission "for Ukraine" as opposed to "in Ukraine".

He added: "I think it's not escalatory to say we're going to help this independent, sovereign country to fight off an aggressor and we're going to give it all the help we can in order to do that."

Britain has given Ukraine more than £7bn and trained more than 60,000 Ukrainian soldiers, in a programme started under Mr Cameron's tenure as PM.

But the foreign secretary urged other countries backing Ukraine to also step up, perhaps by donating weapons.