Keir Starmer welcomed Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz to Downing Street on Sunday evening for talks on scaling up Ukraine’s air defences and deep-strike capabilities, after Russia fired hypersonic Oreshnik weapons at Ukraine. The meeting of the so-called E3 group came hours after a Russian drone strike damaged a storage centre for spent nuclear fuel near the Chornobyl nuclear power plant.
A government spokesperson said the leaders discussed “the urgent need to scale up the production of interceptors and co-develop anti-ballistic missile and deep strike capabilities”. They condemned Russia’s large-scale missile and drone attacks and called on Vladimir Putin to agree “an immediate and complete ceasefire” with the current line of contact as a starting point for negotiations.
Starmer and Zelenskyy continued talks for about half an hour after Macron and Merz departed, before shaking hands and posing for photographs outside No 10. The leaders will now look to the G7 summit at Evian on 15 June and the Nato summit in July to secure further military and economic support for Ukraine.
Before the meeting, Zelenskyy vowed that Ukraine would not “silently die” and said talks would focus on air defence cooperation “for the security of all of Europe”. He thanked the UK and allies for helping “strengthen the protection of life and increase pressure on Russia”. The meeting followed Ukrainian strikes on targets inside Russia, including St Petersburg, where long-range drones hit an oil terminal and naval port.
Putin rejected Zelenskyy’s offer of face-to-face talks, saying his war goals were unchanged and there was “no point” in peace negotiations. Zelenskyy described the response as “weak” and said deep strikes would continue. Ukraine’s mood is increasingly optimistic, with Russia’s advance stalling and Moscow reportedly losing more than 30,000 men killed and injured each month.
