Sir Keir Starmer and European leaders will accompany Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Washington tomorrow. It comes after the US president met Vladimir Putin on Friday.
Sunday 17 August 2025 14:31, UK
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While Zelenskyy and von der Leyen held a press conference in Brussels ahead of their meeting with Donald Trump tomorrow, the US president posted a very brief update on Truth Social.
He wrote: “BIG PROGRESS ON RUSSIA. STAY TUNED! President DJT.”
A few minutes before, he had criticised the so called “fake news” for distorting the truth, saying he’d had a “great meeting” in Alaska.
He added: “If I got Russia to give up Moscow as part of the Deal, the Fake News, and their PARTNER, the Radical Left Democrats, would say I made a terrible mistake and a very bad deal.”
As Zelenskyy has been speaking in Brussels, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has given an interview in the States.
Rubio, who joined Trump at his summit with Putin, says both Russia and Ukraine will have to make concessions in order to secure a peace deal.
He adds that both sides want things they will not be able to get – and that it may not be possible for the US to create a scenario to end the war in Ukraine.
Getting closer to sharing specifics about what a deal could look like, he says there has to be some discussion about security guarantees for Ukraine.
The US has seen enough movement to justify a follow-up meeting with Zelenskyy, he adds.
Both presidents are asked about Donald Trump’s ceasefire stance after his meeting with Putin.
The US president said a peace deal was more important than a ceasefire, and that the latter was not needed to stop the war.
Von der leyen responds saying the term is not important.
She says what matters is the effect, and that the “effect must be to stop the killing”.
“That’s the most important part,” she adds. “Whether we call it a ceasefire or it’s a peace deal.”
Zelenskyy says he “totally agrees” and that the steps must be laid out for how to reach “lasting peace”.
Zelenskyy is now speaking next to von der Leyen.
He says it is crucial that Europe is “as united now” as it was when the war began in 2022 and that this will help “real peace” be reached.
“Putin has many demands, but we do not know all of them,” he adds.
He says it will take time to go through them, but that it is “impossible to do this under that pressure of weapons”.
He adds the current front lines in his country’s war against Russia should be the basis for peace talks.
“We need real negotiations, which means we can start where the front line is now,” he says.
He says a trilateral summit between Ukraine, Russia and the US is needed, but Russia gives “no sign” that this will happen.
“And if Russia refuses, then new sanctions must follow,” he says.
He says he is thankful to Trump and the US for agreeing to work with Europe to provide Ukraine with security guarantees, but that there are “no details for how this will work”.
“Like article 5 of NATO, and we consider EU accession to be part of security guarantees,” he says.
Zelenskyy and von der Leyen are holding a joint news conference in Brussels.
The European Commission President starts, and does so by touching on what she calls the “main points”.
“First, we must have strong security guarantees to protect both Ukraine and Europe’s vital security interests,” she says.
Then she says Ukraine “must be able to uphold its sovereignty and its territorial integrity”.
She says Europe’s position is that “international borders cannot be changed by force”.
The comment comes after reports that Putin made territorial demands in his meeting with Donald Trump on Friday (see our 8:54 post).
“These are decisions to be made by Ukraine and Ukraine alone. And these decisions cannot be taken without Ukraine at the table” she adds.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claims it prevented a Ukrainian drone attack on a nuclear power plant today, according to reports from Russian news agency Interfax.
The agency said the FSB claimed the attack was on the Smolensk plant in Russia’s Oblast region, which is the largest power generating plant in Russia’s northwest.
It comes after Russia’s defence ministry said its forces destroyed and intercepted 300 Ukrainian drones and four guided aerial bombs overnight.
Ukrainian officials have not commented on the claims.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy went to Washington by himself for his last meeting with Donald Trump.
The February visit became infamous after the US president and his VP JD Vance grilled their guest in front of the media, claiming he was “gambling with World War Three”.
Zelenskyy and European leaders have since put a lot of effort into rebuilding that relationship, and Zelenskyy is now calling on them to back him up at the White House.
He will be hoping it puts him in a less vulnerable position with the US leaders this time around.
In case you need a reminder, here’s what happened last time…
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has landed in Brussels for a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, according to his spokesperson.
It comes shortly after she released a statement saying she would be attending his meeting with Donald Trump in Washington tomorrow (see our 10:53 post).
She is one of several European leaders to say they’re going, along with Sir Keir Starmer.
Zelenskyy and von der Leyen are due to hold a joint news conference later in the day.
Sir Keir Starmer will be accompanying Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Washington tomorrow for his crunch meeting with Donald Trump.
A Downing Street statement announcing his attendance said the prime minister “stands ready to support this next phase of further talks and will reaffirm that his backing for Ukraine will continue as long as it takes”.
Starmer will be going alongside several European leaders, including France’s president Emmanuel Macron, Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
It comes after the US president reportedly extended an invitation to them.
Starmer is also set to attend the ‘coalition of the willing’ conference call shortly.
The coalition, which he chairs alongside Macron and Merz, has the aim of bringing countries together to protect a peace deal in Ukraine.
In the past few minutes, a slew of European leaders have said they will join the meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington tomorrow.
Ursula von der Leyen said she will join “at the request of President Zelenskyy”, while the likes of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Finnish President Alexander Stubb are also set to attend.
Mr Stubb’s friendship with Mr Trump is said to have blossomed since the pair bonded over their love of golf during a tournament at Mar-a-Lago in March.
Bringing a gang of leaders along could be an attempt by Mr Zelenskyy to prevent a repeat of the infamous Oval Office showdown with Mr Trump and the vice-president, JD Vance, in February.
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