By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday arrived Downing Street for talks with top European allies, talks to be hosted by British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, which will also involve French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
The three Western powers constitute the so-called E3 group and are some of Kyiv’s strongest allies. The UK and France lead the “coalition of the willing” initiative to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any future peace process.
The meeting in London comes as US President Donald Trump’s focus has shifted from Russia-Ukraine crisis to the war with Iran, involving Israel.
Back in December, the US pushed Russia and Ukraine to sign up quickly to a plan to end the war, currently in its fifth year.
Announcing his arrival in the UK on Sunday afternoon in a post on X, Zelensky said the main focus of the leaders’ talks would be “our defence in the war, greater co-operation for the security of all of Europe in the area of air defence, and our shared view of diplomatic prospects”.
“Europe must be part of the negotiations and must be strong,” he added.
Earlier, the Ukrainian leader accused Russia of a “vile” attack after Kyiv officials said a drone had struck a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel near the Chornobyl nuclear plant.
“Russia deliberately struck this particular nuclear infrastructure facility,” Zelensky said in a post on X, describing the building as an “extremely critical infrastructure facility” and the attack as “vile”.
Chornobyl – known during the Soviet era as Chernobyl – is the world’s worst non-military nuclear disaster. A catastrophic explosion in 1986 sent a plume of radioactive material into the air, triggering a public health emergency across Europe.
On Saturday, Ukraine targeted St Petersburg and the surrounding area as the city hosted the final day of a major economic forum, in a drone attack described as “unprecedented” by Russian authorities.
In the four years since Moscow’s invasion began, Ukraine has developed its defence sector, with Kyiv now able to regularly hit targets within Russia.
Zelensky had sent an open letter calling for a direct negotiations, writing it would be “wrong to simply wait” for the conflict to once again become the focus of US attention.
But Putin rejected the proposal, saying it was “rude” of Zelensky to demand for such meeting and he did not see any point in meeting the Ukrainian leader.
