Ukraine war live: Zelenskyy to meet Starmer, Macron and Merz in London over peace push | Ukraine

Morning opening: London talks

Jakub Krupa

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to meet UK’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Friedrich Merz for talks in London about the war in Ukraine.

The meeting comes after three days of discussions between US and Ukrainian representatives in Florida without an apparent breakthrough amid an intensified push from Washington to end the war but with major territorial concessions from Kyiv.

Donald Trump once again sought to put pressure on Zelenskyy, suggesting publicly that the Ukrainian president “isn’t ready” to sign off on a US-authored peace plan. “I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelenskyy hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago. His people love it, but he hasn’t,” the US president claimed to reporters on Sunday night. (Somewhat sidestepping the public rejection of the plan by Russia.)

The leaders are expected around early lunchtime and will talk behind the closed doors to plan the next steps.

I will cover the meeting here, bringing you all the latest pictures and lines on what’s going on at Downing Street.

Zelenskyy is later expected to visit Brussels and Rome. On Sunday Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni spoke with Zelenskyy by phone and reaffirmed Italy’s solidarity after what she called a fresh wave of “indiscriminate” Russian strikes on civilian targets, her office said.

Separately, I will also keep an eye on the EU’s reactions to Elon Musk and senior US officials’s comments about the bloc over the weekend. The billionaire was particularly active on the back of a €120m fine against his social media platform X, repeatedly calling for the EU to be abolished.

And, finally, EU ministers are meeting in Brussels to sign off plans on migration and asylum laws.

I will bring you all the key updates throughout the day.

It’s Monday, 8 December 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.

Good morning.