Keir Starmer will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz for talks in Downing Street on Sunday — a summit convened after a week of heightened hostilities and Vladimir Putin’s outright rejection of face-to-face negotiations. The Ukrainian leader’s visit alongside the French president and German chancellor underscores the three countries’ role as Kyiv’s staunchest allies, with the UK and France leading the “coalition of the willing” initiative to provide security guarantees as part of a peace process.
The meeting comes after a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack targeted St Petersburg on Saturday, underscoring Kyiv’s growing ability to hit deep inside Russia. No casualties were reported. In Ukraine, one person was killed and three wounded overnight into Saturday in the Dnipropetrovsk region as Russian forces struck three districts nearly 30 times with drones and artillery, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said.
“Starmer to host Zelenskyy, Macron and Merz on Sunday after Putin rejects talks and Ukraine strikes St Petersburg.”
Putin on Friday rejected Zelenskyy’s proposal 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. Earlier this week, Starmer condemned Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine in a phone call with Zelenskyy. Russian strikes had killed one person and injured 15 more, including three children, while Kyiv repelled hundreds of long-range drones.
Last month, Starmer hailed a “generational uplift” in the UK’s defence relationship with Poland as he and his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, signed a new security pact. “There’s no greater challenge for either of our countries than the challenge of Russian aggression, and we see that not just in Ukraine itself, but beyond Ukraine, impacting on our own countries,” Starmer said.
Sunday’s talks will test whether the E3 group can sustain momentum as Putin shows no willingness to negotiate and the war enters a new, more long-range phase.