Keir Starmer is hosting Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Downing Street. Also today, the Kremlin has revealed Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will talk one-on-one at their Alaska summit, and give a news conference afterwards. Follow live updates below.
Thursday 14 August 2025 11:02, UK
Ukraine has secured $1.5bn in US weapons purchased by European allies, Volodymyr Zelenskyy says.
The Ukrainian leader says the NATO Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List, which allows allies to purchase US-made weapons for Ukraine, is “already bringing tangible results”.
Here is what he has said…
Germany will fund a $500m military equipment package for Ukraine under NATO’s new Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) initiative.
The country’s foreign ministry has said that along with other allies, it is prepared to fund “one of the first comprehensive support packages” to show its enduring commitment to Ukraine’s defence.
“The support packages will include military equipment that is either not manufactured by the European defence industry or that can be delivered at the intended scale more swiftly by the United States than by European partners or Canada,” the German foreign ministry said in a statement.
“This includes, for example, critical air defence capabilities.”
What is PURL?
On 14 July, Donald Trump announced that the US would supply Ukraine with military equipment and ammunition in the form of several support packages via NATO.
PURL was created as a mechanism to support Ukraine’s war effort and allows European allies and Canada to make financial contributions to purchase weapons and other essential equipment in large volumes from the US.
NATO will then collate these supplies into packages and facilitate their delivery.
The programme for the talks between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin has been agreed, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov says.
He says it will be a one-on-one meeting with translators and “sensitive matters” will be discussed.
The central topic of the meeting will be the Ukraine crisis but the pair will also discuss trade and economic cooperation, Ushakov says.
The Kremlin aide sought to emphasise the economic element of the upcoming discussions, which he said would look at the “huge untapped potential” for Russia-US economic ties.
Both leaders will give a news conference at the end of the summit.
Trump and Putin will also have a wider meeting with delegations and a working breakfast.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Sir Keir Starmer are now meeting behind closed doors in Downing Street.
The Ukrainian president was greeted with a warm embrace and a serious handshake.
It’s not clear what the two leaders will discuss in their meeting, but it’s thought to include Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin tomorrow.
Watch the moment Zelenskyy arrived below…
Our political correspondent Mhari Aurora watched as the Ukrainian president walked into Downing Street alongside Sir Keir Starmer and says he received a “very warm greeting”.
“We know the two leaders have a good relationship and we know Zelenskyy is incredibly grateful when it comes to the UK’s support for Ukraine,” she says.
“It was a warm embrace but nonetheless they had very serious and stoic expressions on their faces because they understand just how high the stakes are in the next 48 hours.
“Clearly, Ukraine as we know it is at a crossroads, perhaps depending on how serious we can take tomorrow’s summit. Zelenskyy knows that, and Starmer knows that too.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived at Downing Street and is being greeted by Sir Keir Starmer.
The pair hugged and shook hands while ignoring questions from reporters, before heading inside.
A red carpet had been rolled out for the Ukrainian president’s arrival.
Downing Street has provided little detail about what the pair will discuss in their talks, but the meeting comes just a day before Donald Trump meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine.
By Dominic Waghorn, international affairs editor
Ukraine would much rather this meeting weren’t happening.
Trump had seemed to have lost patience with Putin and was about to hit Russia with more severe sanctions until he was distracted by the Russian leader’s suggestion they meet.
Ukrainians say the Alaska summit rewards Putin by putting him back on the world stage.
But the meeting is happening and they have to be realistic.
Most of all they want a ceasefire, before any negotiations can happen.
Then they want the promise of security guarantees. That is because they know that Putin may well come back for more even if peace is reached.
They need to be able to defend themselves should that happen.
And they want the promise of reparations to rebuild their country, devastated by Putin’s wanton, unprovoked act of aggression.
There are billions of Russian roubles and assets frozen across the West. They want them released and sent their way.
What they fear is Trump being hoodwinked by Putin with the lure of profit from US-Russian relations being restored, regardless of Ukraine’s fate.
That would allow Russia to regain its strength, rearm and prepare for another round of fighting in a few years time.
Trump and his golf-buddy-turned-negotiator Stephen Witkoff appear to believe Putin might be satisfied with keeping some of the land he has taken by force.
Putin says he wants much more than that.
He wants Ukraine to cease to exist as a country separate from Russia.
Any agreement short of that is only likely to be temporary.
WhatsApp has vowed to keep trying to make its services available in Russia after Moscow blocked people from using the messaging app.
In a statement, the company, which is owned by Meta Platforms, said its services allowed people to communicate securely – something it claimed Russia was trying to prevent.
“WhatsApp is private, end-to-end encrypted, and defies government attempts to violate people’s right to secure communication, which is why Russia is trying to block it from over 100 million Russian people,” it said.
“We will keep doing all we can to make end-to-end encrypted communication available to people everywhere, including in Russia.”
Russia has started restricting some Telegram and WhatsApp calls, accusing the foreign-owned platforms of failing to share information with law enforcement in fraud and terrorism cases.
A number of Ukrainian missile factories have been struck by Russian forces, Moscow’s defence ministry has said.
It claimed weapons design bureaus and rocket fuel production facilities had also been hit by missiles and drones in the last month.
Several Western missile defence systems that had been deployed to defend the factories have been destroyed, it added.
“An attempt by the Kyiv regime, together with its Western partners, to organise the production of missiles to carry out attacks deep into the territory of the Russian Federation was thwarted,” the ministry said on Telegram.
By Martha Kelner, US correspondent
As with anything Donald Trump does, he already has a picture in his mind.
The image of Trump shaking hands with the ultimate strongman leader, Vladimir Putin, on US soil calls to his vanity and love of an attention-grabbing moment.
There is also pride at stake. Trump campaigned saying he would end the Russia-Ukraine war on his first day in office so there is an element of him wanting to follow through on that promise to voters, even though it’s taken him 200 plus days in office and all he’s got so far is this meeting, without apparently any concessions on Putin’s end.
In Trump’s mind and in that of many of his supporters, he is the master negotiator, the chief dealmaker, and he wants to bolster that reputation.
He is keen to further the notion that he negotiates in a different, more straightforward way than his predecessors and that it is paying dividends.
So far despite sanctions on Russia, despite warnings and deadlines, the situation in Ukraine is only getting worse.
He’s hoping that this meeting, simply the act of sitting down with Putin can change the tide.
The Russian president may have different ideas.
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