Zelensky To Meet Macron, Starmer And Merz In London As Kremlin Praises Trump’s Tougher Security Strategy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will travel to London on Monday to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in a show of European unity after US–Ukraine talks in Miami stalled over security guarantees and territorial questions.

The Miami negotiations, held over the weekend, produced no breakthrough as diplomats continued to debate the shape of security guarantees and territorial arrangements. US negotiators included special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, while Ukraine was represented by Rustem Umerov and Andriy Hnatov.

“We’ve been speaking to [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin and we’ve been speaking to Ukrainian leaders, including… President Zelensky, and I have to say that I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelensky hasn’t yet read the proposal,” President Donald Trump said Sunday, adding that he believed Moscow was "fine" with the plan while expressing uncertainty about Kyiv’s response.

At the same time, the Kremlin publicly welcomed the Trump administration’s new national security strategy, which adopts a firmer posture toward Europe and reframes Washington’s role as central to restoring stability on the continent. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the adjustments as broadly consistent with Moscow’s outlook and called Trump “strong,” while suggesting the changes might offer a basis for constructive engagement.

“The adjustments we are seeing, I would say, are, in many ways, consistent with our vision,” Peskov told reporters. “Perhaps one can hope that this may be a modest guarantee that it will be possible to continue working constructively together to find a peaceful settlement for Ukraine, at the very least.”

European leaders are uneasy about the timing: Washington is shaping mediation even as its posture toward Europe hardens, raising concerns that this shift could influence negotiations at a delicate moment.

Frontline Developments

Diplomatic friction has coincided with intensified fighting. Over the weekend Russia launched one of its largest drone-and-missile barrages in months across Ukraine, which local authorities said killed at least seven people and injured more than a dozen. President Zelensky said Russia had launched more than 1,600 attack drones, roughly 1,200 guided aerial bombs and nearly 70 missiles in the past week, targeting critical energy and civilian infrastructure.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Energy reported wide power outages in Odesa, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv regions; Kyiv residents faced around 12 hours without electricity. Ukraine’s military also claimed an overnight strike on the Ryazan oil refinery in western Russia; Moscow had not immediately responded to the assertion.

European Security Concerns

Separately, unexplained drone sightings near European coastlines have prompted investigations in Ireland and France. Some drones disrupted civilian air traffic or approached military sites, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the pattern as a form of “hybrid warfare.” European officials suspect Russian involvement in at least some incidents, though no drone wreckage has been recovered and Moscow has dismissed the accusations.

As Zelensky meets European leaders in London, the main diplomatic fault lines remain territory and enforceable security guarantees for Ukraine — issues Kyiv insists must be resolved without forced territorial concessions.

Reporting contributions: Jessie Yeung, Max Saltman, Jennifer Hansler and Alejandra Jaramillo.