Putin says no point in meeting Zelensky before peace deal is agreed

Vladimir Putin has poured cold water on Volodymyr Zelensky’s push for a personal meeting, saying there is “no point” in a face-to-face summit until negotiators first put a peace deal on the table.

Speaking at Russia’s flagship economic forum in Saint Petersburg, Putin dismissed the idea of an immediate encounter with the Ukrainian president, one day after Zelensky issued an open later urging such talks.

“I see no point in meeting. It only makes sense for the Ukrainian side to stop the advance of our armed forces. That’s it. And we need agreements,” Putin told the gathering.

“Let the experts work, develop some solutions, and then we can meet,” Putin added.

He also made clear that, from Moscow’s perspective, the war will end only when Russia says its objectives have been met.

“Military actions will end some day, we assume. Without a doubt, they will end once we have achieved the goals we have set for ourselves,” Mr Putin said.

Russia has insisted on control over Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, while also pressing for far-reaching political and military limits on Ukraine.

Earlier, the EU had backed Mr Zelensky’s appeal for direct talks in a letter addressed to Mr Putin.

Mr Zelensky had proposed a meeting between the two leaders to settle an end to more than four years of war, while warning that Kyiv was prepared to keep fighting if no such path emerged.

“We welcome President Zelensky’s call for direct negotiations and also the call for a ceasefire — and from our side, we will go once more through the facts, and this is that Ukraine wants peace, Europe wants peace,” EU spokeswoman Anitta Hipper said.

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In that letter, which Mr Zelensky’s office said was also sent to other countries including the United States, the Ukrainian leader argued that many Russians were weary of Ukrainian missile and drone strikes, inflation and fuel shortages, and were ready for peace.

Mr Zelensky said that, with Washington focused on the conflict in Iran, “it would be wrong to simply wait until the war in Europe returns to the centre of its attention”.

Any route to peace, he said, had to begin at the front line — “the line from which diplomacy must begin”. Ukraine, Mr Zelensky said, supported “a full ceasefire for the duration of the negotiations”.

“This is standard practice.”

Municipal workers and residents clear the rubble from the streets following a Russian air strike in Kramatorsk, Ukraine

He said the United States “has the capability to monitor a ceasefire along the line where hostilities stop”.

Mr Zelensky proposed fixing a date for the talks and said a number of countries had “traditionally hosted leaders to resolve issues of war and peace”, naming Switzerland, Turkey and countries in the Arab world.

“Do not be afraid to take the path out of this war. That is the main thing that is required of you now,” Mr Zelensky wrote.

“Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us – and you. I am proposing a meeting … If you do not personally come to the conclusion that it is time to end this war, Ukraine will continue fighting for its existence.”

He also suggested that a drawn-out war could carry risks for Mr Putin personally.

Mr Zelensky said the US ‘has the capability to monitor a ceasefire along the line where hostilities stop’

“It is a fact of Russian history that you know well: when Russia grows tired, change comes.”

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed Mr Zelensky’s call for direct talks with Mr Putin, saying the moment had come to reopen dialogue with Moscow.

“I believe that it is now up to Ukraine and Russia to establish both a ceasefire and a peace plan.

“It is the Europeans who can help with this,” Mr Macron said at a summit of EU and Balkan leaders in Montenegro.

Leaders of France, Germany and UK to meet Zelensky

The leaders of France, Germany and Britain will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in London on Sunday for talks on increasing pressure on Russia as it endures military setbacks in the invasion of its neighbour, the French presidency said today.

French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will discuss next steps with Mr Zelensky at a time when “Russia, in a state of military, economic and strategic failure, is persisting unsuccessfully with a deadly war”, the Elysee said.

Earlier this month, analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed Ukraine recaptured more territory than it lost to Russian forces in May for the second consecutive month.

At the same time, Russia’s offensive has been accompanied by rising prices, tax increases, borrowing costs at their highest in two decades, business closures and labour shortages, leaving the economy in its most difficult position since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The meeting, due to begin at Downing Street from around 6.30pm on Sunday, will also “take stock of the work undertaken in favour of a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and on the European continent”, the French presidency said.

Russia could attack NATO country within four years – Starmer

US soldiers during NATO military exercises in Poland last month

Russia could launch an attack on a NATO country within four years, according to western intelligence assessments, Mr Starmer warned today.

He spoke as he promised his government would publish a long-awaited defence investment plan before next month’s NATO summit.

“It is our intelligence assessment and the assessment of other countries in NATO that there could be an attack by Russia on NATO as soon as 2030,” Mr Starmer said.

“So you can see the urgency and the priority that we’re putting behind this now,” he added during a visit to a drone manufacturer in southwest England.

The warning mirrors similar timelines set out by other European leaders and NATO chief Mark Rutte, who said in December that Russia “could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years”.

Mr Starmer has pledged to lift defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product from next year, with a further rise to 3% in the next parliament.

A 10-year defence investment plan, following a review of the UK’s defence capabilities, had been due late last year but has yet to appear.

Mr Starmer said it would now be published before the NATO summit in Turkey, which begins on 7 July.

UK media has reported that the blueprint was held up by disagreements between the finance ministry and other departments over its cost.

Mr Starmer told reporters it would be “fully funded”.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly pressed NATO countries to spend more on defence and rely less on Washington for their security.

Ukrainian envoy seeks to ease WWII dispute with Poland

A Ukrainian envoy held talks in Poland today over a dispute between the neighbours after Kyiv named a military unit after a nationalist group accused of carrying out World War II massacres in Poland.

Poland remains one of Ukraine’s key allies in the war with Russia, but Mr Zelensky angered the government in Warsaw by recently naming a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

Poland says the nationalist UPA killed 100,000 Poles between 1943 and 1945.

Poland’s nationalist president Karol Nawrocki said Zelensky should be stripped of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honour, which was awarded three years ago.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk described the move as “worrying”, while Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said in a social media video released Friday that Ukraine should “reconsider this decision”.

“For the Polish people, the UPA is above all the symbol of crimes committed against defenceless civilians,” added the minister, who was to meet Mr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov on Saturday.

Mr Budanov met Poland’s deputy foreign minister Marcin Bosacki today, a ministry spokesperson said.

“The Ukrainian side took the initiative for this meeting,” spokesperson Maciej Wewior said, adding that the naming of the military unit “Heroes of the UPA” was “the main topic of the meeting”.

Polish media reported that Budanov would also meet representatives of Nawrocki on Saturday.

Poland has been among Ukraine’s staunchest backers in its fight against Russia, and much western aid crosses Polish territory.

But the two countries have argued for decades over the UPA, the armed wing of a Ukrainian independence movement that fought Soviet forces but also collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.

Ukraine now regards the UPA as a patriotic organisation. Poland, however, has repeatedly urged its neighbour to acknowledge the UPA’s role in massacres in the Volyn region in what is now northwest Ukraine.

After years of inaction, the two countries resumed exhumations of bodies in the area last year.