King Charles welcomes Volodymyr Zelensky before Starmer talks
Volodymyr Zelensky has received a royal welcome at Windsor Castle before the Ukrainian leader headed to London for crucial talks with European allies.
King Charles has hosted President Volodymyr Zelensky at Windsor Castle, prior to the Ukrainian leader’s talks with European leaders in London on how to increase pressure on Russia.
It was the third time this year the 76-year-old monarch has hosted Mr Zelensky, with the Ukrainian leader given a royal salute and his country’s national anthem played as he arrived at Windsor Castle, west of London, before he had an audience with the King.
Dressed in black, Mr Zelensky told Major Ben Tracey, captain of the guard of honour, “Thank you so much”.
He was then taken inside for an audience with the King, as the public watched from the gates.
Mr Zelensky then headed to Downing Street where he met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, before joining other European leaders on a so-called coalition of the willing call to discuss boosting Ukraine’s defences.
During the meeting, Mr Starmer told Mr Zelensky that there was more that Western allies could do to bolster Kyiv’s long-range missile capability.
Mr Starmer hosted Mr Zelensky at his Downing Street residence ahead of an in-person and virtual get-together of Ukraine’s key backers in the UK capital.
“I think there’s further we can do on capability, particularly … long-range capability, and of course, the vital work for coalition of the willing when it comes to the security guarantees that are necessary,” the UK leader said.
Kyiv’s Western allies have raised pressure on Moscow as the war enters its fourth winter, with the United States and European Union both announcing new sanctions this week on Russian energy aimed at crippling its war economy.
EU leaders also took steps towards funding Ukraine’s defence for another two years, although they stopped short of greenlighting a mammoth “reparations loan” backed by frozen Russian assets.
Starmer hugged Zelensky as the Ukrainian president arrived in Downing Street for initial one-to-one discussions ahead of the so-called “coalition of the willing” meeting, telling him this week had seen “huge steps forward”.
NATO Secretary-general Mark Rutte, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and the Netherlands’ Dick Schoof were set to attend the London summit, with other leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron joining virtually.
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‘REPARATIONS LOAN’
The latest diplomatic activity followed Mr Zelensky’s visit to Washington last week, when US President Donald Trump rebuffed his pleas for long-range Tomahawks to hit targets deep inside Russia.
The nearly four-year war continues to grind on despite US and European efforts to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, with Moscow battering Ukraine’s energy grid this week in deadly drone and missile attacks.
Starmer will also urge European leaders to “finish the job on Russian sovereign assets to unlock billions of pounds to fund Ukraine’s defences”, Downing Street said in a statement.
It came a day after EU leaders tasked the European Commission to move ahead with options for funding Ukraine for two more years, leaving the door open for a 140-billion-euro (A$250 billion) “reparations loan”.
The EU froze around 200 billion euros of Russian central bank assets after Moscow’s tanks rolled into Ukraine, and the European Commission has proposed using the funds to provide a huge loan to Kyiv — without seizing them outright.
But the plan has faced strong objections from Belgium, where the bulk of the frozen Russian assets are held, over the legal consequences.
The broadly worded conclusions of Thursday’s summit in Brussels — adopted by all member states except Hungary — did not mention the loan directly, instead inviting the commission “to present, as soon as possible, options for financial support”.
‘FINANCIAL RESOURCES’
Mr Zelensky nonetheless welcomed the outcome as a signal of “political support” for the notion of using Russian assets to keep Kyiv in the fight.
He has been pleading for weeks for more long-range weapons, hoping to capitalise on Trump’s growing frustration with Putin after a summit in Alaska failed to yield a breakthrough.
But the Ukrainian leader left Washington empty-handed last week as Mr Trump seemed to eye a fresh diplomatic breakthrough instead, on the back of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
The UK and France already supply Ukraine with Storm Shadow and Scalp long-range missiles, while Ukraine also produces its own Flamingo and Neptune missiles.
Kyiv is particularly keen to get the German equivalent Taurus missiles, a move which Berlin has long resisted over fears that it would cause tensions with Russia to further escalate.
On Friday, Starmer will also announce the “acceleration” of a program to manufacture air defence missiles, which aims to supply Ukraine with more than 5,000 such weapons.
Around 140 “lightweight-multirole missiles” will be delivered to Ukraine this winter, according to Downing Street.
UKRAINE’S AUSSIE PLEA
Ukraine is expected to ask Australia to donate another 200 Bushmaster vehicles, as the war with Russia shows no sign of ending despite Donald Trump’s attempts to broker a ceasefire and peace deal.
Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko exclusively told Sky News about his concerns that Australia had not given anymore weaponry this year. He comments come as he is set to meet Defence Minister Richard Marles next week in Canberra.
“We are asking the Australian government to continue supporting Ukraine,” he said.
“Ukraine badly needs more Bushmasters. We need more M113s (armoured personnel carriers.) We need your energy support. Humanitarian assistance. Economic assistance.
“The reason I’m asking for help is because we badly need it. And we do believe it is in (Australia’s) strategic interest now.”
The request comes after two Russian planes from the Kaliningrad exclave briefly entered Lithuanian airspace Thursday, local time, the Lithuanian military said.
A Sukhoi SU-30 fighter and an IL-78 tanker passed through Lithuanian airspace for 700 metres before leaving it 18 seconds later, probably during aerial refuelling training, according to a short statement from the NATO member country.
Two Spanish air force Typhoon Eurofighters – part of a NATO air patrol mission in the Baltic – were quickly deployed.
The three Baltic countries, all NATO members and firm supporters of Ukraine, border either Russia or its ally Belarus and have been exposed to violations of their territory by Russian planes or drones.
In September, three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland and remained there for approximately 12 minutes.
This incident prompted Tallinn to request an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council and the activation of Article 4 of the Atlantic Treaty, which provides for consultations between allies in the event of a threat to one of its members.
It comes as EU leaders tasked the European Commission to move ahead with proposals to fund Ukraine for the next two years, leaving the door open for a mammoth loan funded by frozen Russian assets, diplomats told AFP.
The broadly worded summit conclusions, which pushed a formal decision to December, were adopted after marathon talks aimed at addressing the objections of Belgium, where the bulk of the Russian central bank funds are held.
WAR RAGES WITH DEADLY DRONE STRIKES, BLASTS
A Russian drone killed two Ukrainian journalists and wounded a colleague in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, an attack President Volodymyr Zelensky said followed a pattern of “deliberate” strikes targeting reporters.
Freedom Media, a Ukrainian state-funded news organisation, said their television crew had been hit by a Russian Lancet drone while in their car at a petrol station in the industrial city.
The news outlet, which publishes in Russian, named the killed journalists as 43-year-old Donetsk region native Olena Gramova and Yevgen Karmazin, 33, from Kramatorsk.
It added that another reporter, Alexander Kolychev, was hospitalised.
“These are not accidents or mistakes, but a deliberate Russian strategy to silence all independent voices reporting about Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
The Donetsk regional governor announced details of the strike and posted images showing the charred remains of the journalists’ car.
The proliferation of cheap but deadly drones used both by Russia and Ukraine has made reporting from frontline regions dangerous and unpredictable.
Thursday’s attack comes after a Russian state media correspondent was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike in the Moscow-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.
The general prosecutor’s office meanwhile condemned the Russian attack and said that Moscow’s forces had killed five civilians in the nearby village of Zvanivka several days earlier, citing an eyewitness.
Kramatorsk, which had a pre-war population of around 150,000 people, is one of the few remaining civilian hubs in Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control.
Russian forces are about 16 kilometres from the city, where officials this month announced the mandatory evacuation of children from some parts of the town and outlying villages.
Kremlin-supported separatists in 2014 captured Kramatorsk before being pushed back by Ukrainian forces.
Meanwhile, an explosion at a factory in the central Russian city of Kopeysk killed 10 people and left 12 others missing, the region’s governor said Thursday.
Authorities did not say what caused the blast or give the name of the plant, but Russian media outlets reported that it produced explosives for the military.
Videos of the incident on Russian social media showed a ball of flames erupting into the night sky, sending glowing embers in multiple directions.
“According to the latest information, 10 people were killed in the explosion at the plant in Kopeysk,” Chelyabinsk region governor Alexei Teksler said on Telegram on Thursday.
“The whereabouts of another 12 employees are being clarified,” he added. Russian prosecutors said they had opened a criminal investigation into “industrial safety” violations, without elaborating.
Meanwhile in 🇷🇺 Kopeysk: pic.twitter.com/4Xcdy9q2Pb
— Pierre Davide Borrelli (@PierreDavideB) October 22, 2025
Kyiv has targeted Russian industrial sites with drones throughout the nearly four-year war, causing billions of dollars worth of damage.
Kopeysk, home to around 150,000 people and some 1,600 kilometres from Ukraine, lies on the outskirts of the regional capital Chelyabinsk and is home to multiple manufacturing facilities.
– with AFP and New York Post wires
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Originally published as King Charles welcomes Volodymyr Zelensky before Starmer talks
