Zelenskyy meets with European partners to discuss arming Ukraine with more missiles, depriving Putin of more money

London — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy began his third visit to Britain this year with a highly symbolic show of support from one of his country’s most vocal Western partners.

Zelenskyy was greeted by rare British autumn sunshine and King Charles III at Windsor Castle on Friday, ahead of a summit with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other European leaders of the so-called “coalition of the willing,” who are determined to show that dozens of countries are united behind Ukraine as The devastating full-scale Russian invasion is approaching the four-year mark.

After the pomp and ceremony of his meeting with Charles, Zelenskyy headed to central London to spend the day meeting with Starmer and other senior European and NATO figures, discussing how to put more pressure on Vladimir Putin’s Russia to end the war.

The objective, as highlighted this week Recently announced sanctions against Russia of both the Trump administration and the European Union, is to hit Putin where it hurts most: in the bank account.

Russia’s ability to continue selling oil and gas despite escalating sanctions aimed at stifling Putin’s energy-driven war economy will be a major focus of Friday’s coalition meeting.

Moscow has proven expert in maneuvering around sanctionsthanks to willing global partners and the so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers that still ply the seas.

Partners including Starmer, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof will be there in person to strategize with Zelenskyy, while 20 other leaders will join via video link.

According to a statement posted online by the British government, the leaders are expected to “use the meeting to focus the world’s attention on how they can further strengthen Ukraine’s position and cripple Russia’s ability to continue fighting the war.”

“The only person involved in this conflict who does not want to stop the war is President Putin, and his depraved attacks on young children in a daycare this week make that abundantly clear,” Starmer said in the statement. “Time and time again we offer Putin the opportunity to end his unnecessary invasion, stop the killing and withdraw his troops, but he repeatedly rejects those proposals and any chance for peace. From the battlefield to global markets, as Putin continues to commit atrocities in Ukraine, we must increase pressure on Russia and take advantage of President Trump’s decisive action.”

The leaders will discuss with Zelenskyy how to discourage China and India from purchasing Russian energy at the reduced prices offered by Moscow. Profits from those sales go to help fund Russia’s “war machine,” as President Trump put it this week.

Another focus will be how to use Russian assets frozen by authorities in accounts across Europe to help finance Ukraine’s defensive efforts. European authorities say there are up to $250 billion in Russian assets in the EU.

And the coalition summit hosts will make their own specific announcements of additional support on Friday, with Starmer promising to speed up the delivery of more missiles to Ukraine.

Starmer “will announce that a UK missile construction program has been accelerated to deliver more than 100 additional air defense missiles ahead of schedule to bolster Ukraine’s defenses during the depths of the winter,” according to the British government statement.

The additional missiles are part of a broader deal announced in the spring between the U.K. defense industry and the Ukrainian government, valued at about $2.1 billion, that will allow Britain to provide “more than 5,000 Light Multirole Missiles (LMM) to support the defense of Ukraine,” according to the U.K. government statement.

The laser-guided missiles have a relatively short range, up to about five miles, and are intended to help Ukraine defend its airspace rather than attack.

Zelenskyy has been pushing for months for his European and American partners to also supply him with more long-range missiles, but the President Trump refused to grant her greatest wish from Washington during his visit there last week: Tomahawk missiles. With a range of approximately 1,000 miles, weapons in the hands of Ukrainian forces could easily reach Moscow and beyond.

The Ukrainian leader says those long-range Western missiles (and the green light to use them to target deeper inside Russia) are vital if his country is to stop the relentless airstrikes that continue to kill civilians almost daily.

With Trump’s attempt to reach a ceasefire agreement frustrated and going nowhere, both Ukraine and Russia continue to launch daily attacks. Russian attacks often hit civilian infrastructure and have killed at least six peopleincluding two young children, just in the last few days, according to Zelenskyy.

Russian authorities say a Ukrainian drone attacked an apartment building outside Moscow before dawn on Friday, reportedly wounding five people, including a child.

But for European leaders meeting and convening in London on Friday, the impetus to increase pressure on Putin is growing rapidly, not only because of his army’s daily bombing of Ukraine, but because of Russia’s intensified investigations into NATO defenses.

Lithuania’s leader said two Russian fighter jets violated his airspace (NATO airspace) again on Thursday night. In response, NATO sent two Spanish fighter planes stationed in the Baltics.

President Gitanas Nausėda called it “a flagrant violation of international law and the territorial integrity of Lithuania. Once again, it confirms the importance of strengthening European air defense readiness.”

Russia rejected the accusation, saying its planes carried out “scheduled training flights” over the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, but that they “neither deviated from the flight path nor violated the borders of other countries.”

But it was only the last of a series of unclaimed but suspicious Russian drones and other aircraft incursions into European NATO airspace.

Starmer was due to hold a joint news conference with Zelenskyy later on Friday in London. News themezone sister network BBC News said Keir would likely urge fellow European leaders on Friday to increase supplies of long-range weapons to Ukraine, following a successful Ukrainian attack on a chemical plant in Bryansk, Russia, using Storm Shadow missiles supplied by Britain, earlier this week.