Zelenskyy discusses ‘urgent need to scale up’ air defences with key allies in London | Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the leaders of Britain, France and Germany discussed the “urgent need” to increase Ukraine’s air defense and deep strike capabilities in London after Russia dropped hypersonic weapons on Ukraine on Sunday night, Downing Street said.
The meeting of Ukraine’s staunchest allies in London took place just hours after a Russian drone strike damaged a spent nuclear fuel storage center nine miles from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Keir Starmer invited Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz to a meeting to discuss support for Ukraine, which is trying to capitalize on a series of attacks on key Russian positions. A government spokesman said leaders discussed “the urgent need to increase production of interceptor aircraft and jointly develop anti-ballistic missile and deep strike capabilities” after Russia fired Oreshnik weapons at Ukraine.
Downing Street said leaders condemned Russia’s large-scale missile and drone strikes and called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree an “immediate and complete ceasefire”, using the existing line of contact as a starting point for talks. Leaders will now consider the G7 summit in Evian on June 15 to provide more support for Ukraine and press for more economic sanctions and the “promise of greater military and defense support to Ukraine” at the NATO summit in July.
Starmer and the Ukrainian president continued their conversation for about half an hour after Macron and Merz’s departure, then shook hands and briefly posed for a photo in front of Number 10 on Sunday evening.
The leaders of the so-called E3 nations – Britain, France and Germany – met after a week of hostilities and after Putin rejected Zelenskyy’s proposal for face-to-face talks about Moscow’s war. Britain and France are leading a “coalition of the willing” initiative to provide security guarantees to Ukraine.
Ahead of the meeting, Zelenskyy promised that Ukraine “will not die quietly”. He told Sky News: “We will respond. We will be stronger every day.”
He said the talks would focus on support for Ukraine and cooperation on air defense “for the security of all of Europe.”
Zelenskyy, who will meet King Charles on Monday, thanked Britain and Ukraine’s other allies and said in a social media post that they had “helped us strengthen the protection of life and increase pressure on Russia for its aggression.”
The meeting followed a series of devastating Ukrainian attacks on targets in Russia, including Vladimir Putin’s hometown of St Petersburg. Long-range Ukrainian drones hit an oil terminal and a nearby sea port this week, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky. The attacks began hours before the city’s international economic forum was due to begin.
Speaking at Friday’s event, Putin rejected Zelenskyy’s offer for a face-to-face meeting made in an open letter. He said the war objectives had not changed and there was “no point” in pursuing peace negotiations.
Zelenskyy described Putin’s response as “weak”. He said Ukraine’s deep attacks against targets in Russia will continue.
The letter, Zelenskyy’s first letter written directly to Putin since Russia launched its large-scale invasion in 2022, strongly criticized the Russian leader’s 26-year rule.
He acknowledged that US priorities have changed and said it would be wrong to expect the Trump administration to turn its attention to ending the Ukraine war while it focuses heavily on the Iran war. Zelenskyy wrote to Putin: “The world is not tired of Ukraine, as you have long hoped. But there is a growing fatigue in Russia.”
The mood in Kiev is becoming increasingly optimistic. Russia’s advance on the battlefield appears to have stalled. Ukraine claims that Moscow is losing more men than it can recruit, more than 30,000 killed and wounded a month. Russia’s air defenses apparently cannot shoot down Ukrainian drones, which can fly more than 620 miles (1,000 km) from the front line.
On Saturday Ukraine struck St Petersburg again, reportedly targeting an ammunition depot and oil terminal in nearby Kronstadt. The city’s governor, Alexander Beglov, said three people were slightly injured. He called on citizens to stay at home.
Ukrainian special operations forces released footage of overnight attacks on fuel storage facilities in occupied Crimea. The attacks took place in the towns of Lenine and Feodosia.
Drones also destroyed a bridge connecting the peninsula to the Chonhar crossing point into Russian-controlled southern Ukraine. The road connects to a major supply route that was closed this week after repeated attacks on trucks and tankers. While the attacks caused serious fuel shortages in Crimea, the crisis began to spread to other regions, including the south of Russia.
Zelenskyy described Sunday’s attack on a storage facility near Chernobyl as “extremely despicable” and stressed that it did not lead to an increase in radiation. The fire in the building was extinguished in a short time. The International Atomic Energy Agency said large amounts of nuclear fuel were stored just meters away.
“An extremely critical infrastructure facility and an extremely vile Russian attack,” Zelenskyy said in his article to X, adding that Russia used the Iranian-designed Shahed attack drone. “As of now, there are no measurements that exceed normal background radiation levels. But there is certainly an increase in Russia’s arrogance, which was unusual a long time ago.”
Russian aerial bombs killed four people. These included two people waiting at a bus stop in the village of Balabyne in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, and a 56-year-old minibus driver whose vehicle was targeted nearby. A 59-year-old man was killed in the attack in the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, the regional governor reported on Telegram.
