{"id":626535,"date":"2026-06-07T21:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/626535\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T21:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:08:12","slug":"zelenskyy-meets-key-allies-in-london-aiming-to-build-on-strikes-on-russia-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/626535\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelenskyy meets key allies in London aiming to build on strikes on Russia | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Volodymyr Zelenskyy met his staunchest allies at Downing Street on Sunday night, hours after a Russian drone strike damaged a storage centre for spent nuclear fuel<\/a> nine miles from the Chornobyl nuclear power plant.<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer welcomed Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron<\/a> and Friedrich Merz for a meeting to discuss ongoing support for Ukraine as the country seeks to capitalise on a series of strikes on key Russian positions.<\/p>\n

The leaders of the so-called E3 group of nations \u2013 the UK, France and Germany \u2013 gathered after a week of heightened hostilities and after Vladimir Putin rejected Zelenskyy\u2019s proposal<\/a> of face-to-face talks on Moscow\u2019s war. The UK and France are leading a \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d initiative to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace process.<\/p>\n

Before the meeting, Zelenskyy vowed that Ukraine<\/a> would not \u201csilently die\u201d. He told Sky News: \u201cWe will respond. We will be stronger and stronger each day.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said talks would focus on support for Ukraine and cooperation on air defence \u201cfor the security of all of Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy, who will meet King Charles on Monday, thanked the UK and Ukraine\u2019s other allies, who he said in a social media post were \u201chelping us strengthen the protection of life and increase pressure on Russia<\/a> for its aggression\u201d.<\/p>\n

The meeting followed a series of devastating Ukrainian strikes on targets inside Russia, including Vladimir Putin\u2019s home city of St Petersburg. Long-range Ukrainian drones hit an oil terminal and a nearby naval port<\/a> this week, sending black smoke billowing into the sky. The attacks began hours before the start of the city\u2019s international economic forum.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the event on Friday, Putin rejected an offer made in an open letter by Zelenskyy to hold face-to-face talks. He said his war goals were unchanged and there was \u201cno point\u201d in holding peace negotiations.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy described Putin\u2019s response as \u201cweak\u201d. He said Ukraine\u2019s deep strikes would continue against targets in Russia.<\/p>\n

The letter, the first Zelenskyy has publicly written directly to Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, was fiercely critical of the Russian leader\u2019s 26 years in power.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged shifting US priorities, saying it would be wrong to wait for the Trump administration to return its attention to ending the Ukraine war while it remained heavily focused on the Iran war. \u201cThe world has not grown tired of Ukraine, as you long hoped it would. But there is growing fatigue with Russia,\u201d Zelenskyy wrote to Putin.<\/p>\n

The mood in Kyiv is increasingly optimistic. On the battlefield, Russia\u2019s advance appears to have stalled. Ukraine claims Moscow is losing more men than it can recruit, with more than 30,000 killed and injured a month. Russia\u2019s air defences are seemingly unable to shoot down Ukrainian drones capable of flying more than 620 miles (1,000km) from the frontline.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Ukraine struck St Petersburg again, reportedly targeting an ammunition dump and oil terminal in nearby Kronstadt. The city\u2019s governor, Alexander Beglov, said three people sustained minor injuries. He told residents to stay indoors.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s special operations forces released footage of overnight strikes on fuel storage facilities in occupied Crimea. The attacks took place in the towns of Lenine and Feodosia.<\/p>\n

Drones also knocked out a bridge connecting the peninsula with the Chonhar crossing point, a gateway into Russian-controlled southern Ukraine. It connects with a key supply road that was shut this week after repeated strikes on lorries and tankers. The attacks have led to severe fuel shortages in Crimea, with the crisis beginning to spread to other areas including southern Russia.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy called Sunday\u2019s attack on a storage facility near Chornobyl \u201cextremely vile\u201d and stressed that it did not lead to a spike in radiation. A fire in the building was quickly extinguished. Large amounts of nuclear fuel were stored a few metres away, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn extremely critical infrastructure facility \u2013 and an extremely vile Russian strike,\u201d Zelenskyy wrote on X, adding that Russia had used an Iranian-designed Shahed attack drone. \u201cAs of now, there are no readings exceeding normal background radiation levels. But there is certainly an increase in Russia\u2019s brazenness, which long ago went off the charts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four people were killed by Russian aerial bombs. They 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. An attack in the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk oblast killed a 59-year-old man, the region\u2019s governor posted on Telegram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Volodymyr Zelenskyy met his staunchest allies at Downing Street on Sunday night, hours after a Russian drone strike…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-626535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}