Mohamed Madi
Reporting from Downing Street

This is a message to President Zelensky that the UK wants to remain one of Ukraine’s most dependable allies.

Arriving at Downing Street after a morning with the King, President Zelensky and Keir Starmer will now head into a round of talks with the Danish and Dutch Prime Ministers, as well as the Nato chief.

It’s very much the business end of this visit after the ceremony of Windsor.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has greeted Volodymyr Zelensky with a hug and the pair shook hands.

They exchanged some words and posed for photos before heading into the black door at 10 Downing Street.

President Zelensky has just arrived at Downing Street for his meeting with Prime Minister Starmer and other coalition of the willing leaders.

It’s a red carpet welcome for the Ukrainian leader.

Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor

Ukraine’s president is always looking for fresh supplies of weapons to keep his country’s military from running short in the face of Russia’s full-scale war. His mission now is to obtain long-range missiles and to bolster Ukraine’s air defences. He has also signed a letter of intent with Sweden to buy 150 Gripen fighter jets.

But he has other big priorities that he’s been asking European leaders for help with too: cash to keep his country afloat, and intensifying sanctions on Russia.

One big success on that front this week was US President Trump’s decision to impose sanctions on Russia’s top oil producers, Lukoil and Rosneft. Putin has admitted they may have “certain consequences”, even if he claims they won’t hit the Russian economy.

The EU has now approved its 19th package of sanctions, external, which brings forward a ban on imports of Russian liquefied natural gas, and Zelensky now says EU sanctions must be treated with the same worldwide respect as Trump’s measures are.

Zelensky also needs to maintain the supply of cash – and while the EU last night committed itself to tackling Ukraine’s financial needs for 2026-27, a summit of leaders failed to agree on providing Kyiv with about €140bn (£122bn) in Russian assets frozen in Belgium as collateral.

At Number 10, a red carpet is being rolled out to welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other dignitaries to London.

And our team in Downing Street has also spotted the Ukrainian delegation arriving:

President Volodymyr Zelenksy has a busy day ahead. Here’s how his afternoon will unfold:

• Zelensky will join Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Downing Street where the pair will discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine and what steps the UK is able to take to continue its support for Kyiv
• Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Dutch Premier Dick Schoof and Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte will then join the pair for talks in London, with French President Emmanuel Macron joining in virtually
• After the six leaders wrap up their talks, Zelensky will take part in a Coalition of the Willing meeting, in which around 20 other leaders will dial in
• To conclude things, Starmer, Zelensky and Nato General Secretary Mark Rutte will deliver a joint news conference with an update on any developments and a summary of how Friday’s talks went

Sandro Vetsko
BBC Monitoring

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has clarified Vladimir Putin’s warning following reports that Ukraine continues to seek missiles such as Tomahawks and that the US would not object to their use against Russia.

“This is an attempt at escalation,” Putin told members of the Kremlin pool of reporters on Thursday. “However, if such weapons are used to strike Russian Federation territory the response will be very serious, if not to say overwhelming. Let them think about it.”

During his daily call with members of the media today, Peskov explained that an “overwhelming” response would follow “attempts” to strike Russia rather than deliveries of missiles to Ukraine.

“You said it wrong. [An overwhelming response will follow] not deliveries of Tomahawk missiles, but attempts to carry out strikes deep into Russian territory. This is what the president said,” TASS news agency quoted Peskov as saying.

“I think the statement was so eloquent and exhaustive that there is nothing to clarify,” Peskov added.

Peskov also said that Donald Trump had “postponed not cancelled” the meeting with Putin that was expected to take place in Budapest in the near future.

In Russia, Moscow Oblast’s governor says five people have been injured after an overnight drone attack on a building in the city of Krasnogorsk.

The residential building was damaged as a result of the attack and four people were taken to hospital, Andrey Vorobyov says in a post on social media.

Moscow’s Mayor Sergey Sobyanin says the Ministry of Defence’s forces shot down three drones headed to Moscow. “Emergency services are working at the crash site,” he adds.

A further four drones were intercepted over the neighbouring Kaluga Oblast, the Russian Ministry of Defence says in a separate update.

As we wait to hear from President Zelensky and the coalition of the willing, we can bring you an update from Ukraine.

Two people have been killed in Russian shelling in a district in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, the head of the city military administration says.

At least 17 others, including two teenagers, have been injured in the attack which happened in the city’s Korabelnyi district this morning, Yaroslav Shanko says in a post on social media.

One of the victims is a woman who was in a bus at the time of the attack, he adds.

John Sudworth
in Kyiv

Ukraine senses that the tide is shifting furtherin terms of Europe’s readiness to provide the financial and military support itneeds, especially with big doubts still looming over the US position.

Already this week we’ve had news of anotherstrike on Russian territory using British-made Storm Shadow missiles, with thetargeting of a chemical plant some 200 km beyond Ukraine’s borders.

The London talks will focus on providing morelong-range capabilities, with the British Prime Minister, Sir Kier Starmer,said to be ready to push European allies to do more.

Ukraine has been seeking German Taurus missileswhich can hit targets up almost twice as far as the Storm Shadow, but so farBerlin has proved reluctant.

And President Volodymyr Zelensky, disappointedby Washington’s recent refusal to provide its far more powerful Tomahawkmissiles, has noted that “European countries also have Tomahawks”.

The only other country known to have asignificant stockpile is the UK, although there’s been no public discussion bythe government about the possibility of providing them and, without Americanapproval, it might seem unlikely.

There are risks in all of this, of course, withPresident Trump himself citing possible escalation as one of his reasons forsaying no to giving the weapons system to Ukraine.

At his recent press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin – a man who knows that as head of a nuclear power hiswords are carefully parsed by the outside world – said that the consequences ofusing such a weapon against Russia would be “serious, if not staggering.”

A view of Downing Street this morning shows the stage is set for Volodymyr Zelensky’s arrival in London for a meeting of the so-called coalition of the willing.

The Ukrainian president will meet UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer along with other allies and is expected to discuss ways to put more pressure on Russia.

Stay with us as we’ll bring you all the latest as the day unfolds.

Some pictures are now coming in to us from Windsor, where Zelensky is with King Charles.

He can be seen inspecting the 1st Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, ahead of a meeting with the King inside the castle.

As we’ve mentioned in the post below, this is the third time President Zelensky and King Charles meet this year.

In March, Zelensky met the King at Sandringham after attending a summit of European leaders focused on ending the war in Ukraine. Royal sources said the meeting was just over an hour and President Zelensky was “warmly received” by the monarch.

Then, in June, the King hosted Zelensky at Windsor Castle.

King Charles has previously expressed support for Zelensky and Ukraine, saying the country had experienced “indescribable aggression” following Russia’s “unprovoked attack on their land”.

As we wait for fresh pictures to come in from Windsor Castle, here’s a look at the pair’s earlier meetings:

Ukraine’s President Zelensky is in Windsor now to meet King Charles. This is their third meeting this year.

Arriving at Windsor Castle, he was given a royal salute and the Ukrainian national anthem was played.

We’ll bring you some pictures of this when we get them.

Zelensky’s talks with Ukraine’s European allies come as a face-to-face meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin was put on hold on Tuesday.

Plans for Trump-Putin talks in Budapest were first announced by Trump a week ago, after what he called a “good and productive” phone call between the pair that lasted over two hours.

But after a call between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a White House official said there are “no plans” for Trump to meet Putin “in the immediate future”.

Speaking to reporters later that day, the US president said he didn’t want a “wasted meeting”.

Trump has also voiced his frustration at his meetings with the Kremlin leader, saying: “Every time I speak to Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere”.

Going into today’s meeting, Zelensky is still without the Tomahawk missiles he’s been seeking – the main focus of his visit to the White House last week.

Tomahawk missiles have a range of up to 2,500km (1,500 miles), which would put Moscow within reach of Ukraine. Zelensky believes using them to strike Russian oil and energy facilities would seriously weaken Putin’s war economy.

Although Trump had previously said he was considering giving Ukraine the long-range missiles, Zelensky left the bilateral talks last Friday empty-handed.

The Ukrainian president said after the meeting that he had discussed the weapons with Trump, but chose not to make statements on the issue “because the United States does not want an escalation”.

On Wednesday, the US announced that it was sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies, aiming to put more economic pressure on Russia to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine.

This marks a clear shift in foreign policy from US President Donald Trump, who had previously said he would not impose more sanctions unless European countries stopped buying Russian oil and gas – Russia’s biggest export.

“I just felt it was time,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about the sanctions.

The UK has also recently sanctioned the same two Russian oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. EU countries have issued new sanctions banning the import of Russian liquefied natural gas from January 2027.

Ahead of today’s summit, EU leaders stopped short of releasing billions of euros in frozen Russian cash to help fund Ukraine’s defence.

They made the move during a meeting in Brussels on Thursday.

The decision to use €140bn (£122bn) in Russian assets was pushed back until December, but leaders agreed to help support Ukraine’s “financial needs” for the next two years.

The final text asks the European Commission for “options for financial support based on an assessment of Ukraine’s financing needs”.

“Russia’s assets should remain immobilised until Russia ceases its war of aggression against Ukraine and compensates it for the damage caused by its war,” the declaration adds.

Zelensky, who was in Brussels for the summit, welcomed the outcome as a signal of “political support” for the notion of using Russian assets to keep Kyiv in the fight.

• Read more about the decision in Brussels

“We must ratchet up the pressure on Russia and build on President Trump’s decisive action,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said ahead of the coalition of the willing meeting today.

“The only person involved in this conflict who does not want to stop the war is President Putin,” he says.

“Time and again” Putin has been offered a chance to stop the war “but he repeatedly rejects those proposals and any chance of peace”, Starmer adds.

“Ukraine’s security matters to us all, and what happens on the front line of Donetsk today is shaping our collective future for years to come.”

“I don’t put much hope into the coalition of the willing” says Alexander Khara, former adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence.

But he says that talking about practicalities, including long-range missiles for Ukraine, “certainly, is a good thing” – adding that the weapons are “something that we badly need to degrade Russia’s fighting capabilities”.

Khara gives Crimea as an example of where he thinks these missiles would be useful: it’s “a centre of gravity in this war and we cannot liberate it with ground forces”.

The former adviser believes targeting Crimea with long-range missiles is “something that may bring Putin to the negotiating table”.