Waspi campaigners have threatened legal action against the government unless it reconsiders its decision to reject compensation.

In December, the government said it would not be compensating millions of women born in the 1950s – known as Waspi women – who say they were not given sufficient warning of the state pension age for women being lifted from 60 to 65.

It was due to be phased in over 10 years from 2010, but in 2011 was sped up to be reached by 2018, then rose to the age of 66 in 2020.

A watchdog had recommended that compensation be paid to those affected, but Sir Keir Starmer said at the time that taxpayers could not afford what could have been a £10.5bn package.

On Monday, the Waspi campaign said it had sent a “letter before action” to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) warning the government of High Court proceedings if no action is taken.

Angela Madden, chair of Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) campaign group, said members will not allow the DWP’s “gaslighting” of victims to go “unchallenged”.

She said: “The government has accepted that 1950s-born women are victims of maladministration, but it now says none of us suffered any injustice. We believe this is not only an outrage but legally wrong.

“We have been successful before and we are confident we will be again. But what would be better for everyone is if the Secretary of State (Liz Kendall) now saw sense and came to the table to sort out a compensation package.

“The alternative is continued defence of the indefensible but this time in front of a judge.”

The group has launched a £75,000 CrowdJustice campaign to fund legal action, and said the government has 14 days to respond before the case is filed.

Read more:
What is a Waspi woman and what happened to them?

In the mid-1990s, the government passed a law to raise the retirement age for women over a 10-year period to make it equal to men.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in the early 2010s under David Cameron and Nick Clegg then sped up the timetable as part of its cost-cutting measures.

In 2011, a new Pensions Act was introduced that not only shortened the timetable to increase the women’s pension age to 65 by two years but also raised the overall pension age to 66 by October 2020 – saving the government around £30bn.

About 3.6 million women in the UK were affected – as many complained they weren’t appropriately notified of the changes and some only received letters about it 14 years after the legislation passed.

While in opposition, Rachel Reeves, now the chancellor, and Liz Kendall, now pensions secretary, were among several Labour MPs who supported the Waspi women’s campaign.

The now-Chancellor said in a 2016 debate that women affected by the increase in state pension age had been “done and injustice” and urged the government to “think again”.

Read more from Sky News:
Body found in search for missing jogger
Conservatives win German election

A government spokesperson said: “We accept the Ombudsman’s finding of maladministration and have apologised for there being a 28-month delay in writing to 1950s-born women.

“However, evidence showed only one in four people remember reading and receiving letters that they weren’t expecting and that by 2006, 90% of 1950s-born women knew that the state pension age was changing.

“Earlier letters wouldn’t have affected this. For these and other reasons, the government cannot justify paying for a £10.5 billion compensation scheme at the expense of the taxpayer.”

In less than a fortnight, Donald Trump has shredded long-standing security assumptions about American support for Europe, creating a new crisis for Ukraine and leaving the whole continent in greater peril than at any time since the Second World War.

The dramatic unravelling of transatlantic ties comes as Kyiv marks the grimmest of milestones – three years since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion, with fighting still raging along a vast frontline.

The new US president says he is determined to negotiate a peace deal with the Kremlin, but Ukraine and its European allies are fearful that a failure to prioritise Ukrainian demands will only embolden Moscow and set the stage for Russia to launch a wider European war within a few years.

Adding to this sense of gloom, the signals from the White House are relentlessly bleak.

Mr Trump has already unilaterally spoken to Vladimir Putin by phone, called Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator”, and is trying to force Kyiv to sign away hundreds of billions of dollars worth of its natural resources as a kind of payback for past US military support – which had been freely given by Joe Biden to fight Russia’s war.

The unpicking of the security blanket between Europe and the United States – woven from the ashes of two world wars – began with an email to the media on 12 February.

It contained the embargoed comments that Pete Hegseth, the new American defence secretary, was set to make that day at the opening of a meeting between some 50 nations to discuss assistance to Ukraine to fight Russia’s war.

I was among the journalists covering the event at NATO headquarters in Brussels and – presumably like most other defence journalists – had to read and then re-read the text as I could not believe what it said.

There were extraordinary reversals in US policy towards Ukraine, including a claim that it is “unrealistic” to believe Kyiv can recapture all its territory from Russia, a ruling out of NATO membership as part of any ceasefire deal with Moscow and saying that US forces would not be deployed on the ground to deter future Russian attacks following a peace deal.

But it was this line from Mr Hegseth that raised the highest eyebrows: “I’m also here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe.”

In one sentence, the defence secretary appeared to be confirming the worst fears of his European allies and Canada – that the US, under Mr Trump, no longer views the NATO transatlantic alliance as the bedrock of American and European security.

When he actually addressed the Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting – a format originally set up and chaired by his predecessor Lloyd Austin, but now led for the first time by the UK Defence Secretary John Healey – Mr Hegseth’s European remarks were slightly softer, saying the US could no longer be “primarily focused on the security of Europe”.

Yet the stark message that European allies and Canada must shoulder a far greater burden of responsibility for their own security and to support Ukraine rather than rely on America – Europe cannot turn “Uncle Sam into Uncle Sucker” was a phrase Mr Hegseth used when speaking subsequently with the media – was heard loud and clear.

With allies already in a tailspin, the crisis deepened a few hours later as news emerged that Mr Trump had picked up the phone with Russia’s president – the first such call between the leaders of the two countries since before the start of the full-scale war.

The US president described the 90-minute interaction as a “lengthy and highly productive” conversation. Only afterwards, did Mr Trump reach out to Mr Zelenskyy.

The thawing in relations between Washington and Moscow and the new chill in ties between the US and Europe meant tensions were at a record high when top ministers from around the world met for an annual security conference in Munich from 14 to 16 February.

From a European perspective, US vice president JD Vance stole the show for all the wrong reasons, using his outing on the world stage to berate the state of Europe’s democracy, slamming restrictions on free speech and what he described as censorship.

The next-level shock felt by European capitals was palpable. Mr Zelenskyy was the other star turn at the conference.

He used his appearance to underline Kyiv’s position on White House plans for a peace deal with Russia – that no agreement on Ukraine could be made without Ukraine.

He also issued a rallying cry for his European partners to strengthen their defences and build credible European armed forces to better withstand the whims of larger powers.

But the president simultaneously had to confront the reality of Mr Trump, whose administration was ramping up pressure on his government to sign an economic deal with the US that would give away up to half of Ukraine’s natural resources such as minerals and rare earth.

He kept a brave face in Munich after meeting with Mr Vance, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, and Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, the special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

But Mr Zelenskyy’s smile started to fade as Mr Rubio and two other top Trump officials then popped up in Saudi Arabia for face-to-face talks with their Russian counterparts.

He was not invited despite planning to be in the region around the same time.

While billed as part of an effort to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine, the meeting in Riyadh was also focused on a rekindling of economic ties between Washington and Moscow – to the horror and disbelief of European and Ukrainian allies that have worked hard with Washington for the past three years to impose strict sanctions on Russia.

At the same time, Mr Trump started to become increasingly frustrated with Mr Zelenskyy for – in his mind – refusing to sign the minerals deal.

In a devastating outburst, the American president falsely claimed his Ukrainian counterpart had a 4% public approval rating and suggested Kyiv was to blame for starting the war.

Mr Zelenskyy – who had stayed quiet in the face of previous White House provocations – clearly felt Mr Trump had gone too far.

On 20 February, he retorted that he believed the US leader was living in a “disinformation space”, where falsehoods spread by Moscow were percolating.

This triggered an even more jaw-dropping rebuke from Washington, with Mr Trump describing his Ukrainian counterpart as a “dictator without elections” and saying he had “better move fast” to secure a peace deal or risk not having a country to lead.

The rupture in diplomatic norms has left Ukraine and wider Europe reeling, while Russia must be laughing.

Now no longer able to rely on Washington, Kyiv needs its European allies to step up.

A trip to Washington DC this week by President Emmanuel Macron of France on Monday, and Britain’s Sir Keir Starmer on Thursday, will be important moments to try to convince Mr Trump that to stand with Ukraine is to be on the right side of history.

But there is little from the past fortnight to indicate that he will heed any advice from European powers that he does not regard as his equal, has repeatedly slammed for insufficient investment in their own militaries and that have – as far as he is concerned – “freeloaded” off American strength when it comes to support for Ukraine and for wider European defence.

Read more:
Trump says key Ukrainian minerals deal is close
Zelenskyy ‘would quit’ for peace and NATO membership

Rather than returning to being an ally, Mr Trump will likely instead stick to his mantra of “peace through strength” but only on his own terms.

This though raises the risk of more war when it comes to Russia as Mr Putin will surely want to test what else he can take from Europe if the US really is stepping back.

In her desperate search for answers over her son Valentin’s death, Elena even turned to Vladimir Putin.

She wrote to the Russian president demanding an explanation as to why an 18-year-old conscript was involved in combat.

Throughout the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin promised that conscripts wouldn’t be sent to war. But in Valentin’s case, the war came to him.

He had been deployed to the Kursk region as part of his military service and stationed on the border.

But it was there that Ukrainian forces launched their cross-border incursion in August and one month after it began, Valentin was killed after receiving a shrapnel wound to the head.

“It should be specially trained people there, not children,” Elena says.

“They were taken from home, from a mother’s nest, and brought to some unknown place, where there is shooting.

“What kind of warrior is he? He’s not a warrior.”

Like other fallen soldiers, Russia views Valentin as a hero, but that’s no comfort to Elena. All she has are questions, which she wasn’t afraid to put to Mr Putin directly.

“The most important question was: ‘What were our children doing there?’ But I didn’t get any response,” she says.

“At that moment I just wanted to take the whole world and turn it upside down.

“Whoever says they are obligated for military service, what do they owe? What did my son take from the Motherland to pay a debt with his life?”

Read more:
Russian oligarchs with links to Kremlin face UK ban
Zelenskyy on why he would give up presidency
Fact-checking Trump’s claims on Zelenskyy and Ukraine

Valentin was a few weeks short of his 19th birthday when he died, and nearly a year into his military service. Elena didn’t want him to sign on so soon – head boy at school, he could have deferred conscription until after further study – but she says he was excited to serve and insisted.

Pictures of him in his parade uniform are everywhere in her apartment in Rybinsk, a town 160 miles northeast of Moscow. His blue beret is perched on a shelf. And Elena still hopes that one day he’ll walk through the door.

“I still wait for him to come back home, even though I saw his body. I still can’t believe it,” she says, tears running down her face.

“Sometimes I sit and think who my grandchildren could have been. It’s impossible to live like this. It’s not life.”

Russia doesn’t publish its casualty figures but the UK estimates that more than 750,000 Russian troops have either been killed or wounded in the three years since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion began.

Valentin is buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of Rybinsk – a 20-minute bus ride for Elena. There are dozens and dozens of military graves there, each one marked with flags. The grave next to Valentin is for a serviceman killed on the same day as him.

It’s rare for anyone to speak openly in Russia about the war because criticising it can land you in prison. But Elena is determined to prevent other mothers from suffering the same experience.

“I want only one thing – for all children to come home,” she said.

“I want them to hear us and give us back our children in the same state we gave them, not cold.”