Keir Starmer will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz for talks in Downing Street on Sunday to discuss support for Ukraine. The Ukrainian leader is visiting the UK with the French president and German chancellor after a week of heightened hostilities and Vladimir Putin's rejection of his proposal for face-to-face talks on Moscow's war.
The three countries meeting Zelensky are some of Kyiv's staunchest allies. The UK and France are leading the “coalition of the willing” initiative to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace process. A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack targeted St Petersburg on Saturday, underscoring Kyiv's growing ability to hit deep inside Russia, though no casualties were immediately reported.
In Ukraine, one person was killed and three wounded overnight in the Dnipropetrovsk region as Russian forces struck three districts nearly 30 times with drones and artillery, according to regional head Oleksandr Hanzha. Putin on Friday rejected a proposal by Zelensky for face-to-face talks on the four-year-old war, claiming he saw “no point” in a meeting. Donald Trump said it would be “great” for the two to meet, but his attention has largely been on talks with Iran.
On Wednesday, Starmer condemned Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine in a phone call with Zelensky. Russian strikes earlier this week killed one person and injured 15 others, including three children. Last month, Starmer hailed a “generational uplift” in the UK’s defence relationship with Poland as he and Polish counterpart Donald Tusk signed a new security pact, saying: “There’s no greater challenge for either of our countries than the challenge of Russian aggression.”
