There were hugs, handshakes and backslapping all around Thursday when Ukrainian President Zelensky arrived at 10 Downing Street for a meeting with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
The very public show of mutual admiration came just 24-hours ahead of a critical meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an Alaska air base.
Starmer took time to capture the Downing Street meet-up on social media:
The two leaders will come together and try to formulate an ending to the conflict in Ukraine – an event Starmer and Zelensky have not been invited to as Europe sits on the sidelines.
The Trump/Putin meeting will be the first time the Russian leader has been permitted on Western soil since his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine which has killed tens of thousands of people.
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, warmly hugs Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at Downing Street in London, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
The BBC reports Zelensky and Starmer were likely to discuss that ongoing conflict and how to bring fighting to an end.
European leaders have already laid out their conditions for any progress on peace in Ukraine, as Breitbart News reported, despairing it is happening in Alaska and not on European soil.
President Trump hosted an hour-long strategy call Wednesday with European leaders including Zelensky, Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, NATO’s Mark Rutte, the European Union’s Ursula Von Der Leyen, and others.
Recent polling suggests there is an appetite in Ukraine to end the fighting, even at a cost.
As reported last week, a poll found a clear majority of Ukrainians say their country “should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible”, a total reversal of the situation in 2022 when the war was fresh when the majority said to keep fighting until victory.
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