Volkswacht Bodensee - UK PM hosts Zelensky in London on eve of US-Russia summit

Starmer greeted the Ukrainian leader with a warm hug and handshake on the steps of his Downing Street residence, only hours after Zelensky took part in a virtual call with US President Donald Trump.

Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet Friday at an air base in Alaska, the first time the Russian leader has been permitted on Western soil since his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine which has killed tens of thousands of people.

A stepped-up Russian offensive, and the fact Zelensky has not been invited to the Anchorage meeting Friday, have heightened fears that Trump and Putin could strike a deal that forces painful concessions on Ukraine.

But Starmer said Wednesday there was now a "viable" chance for a ceasefire in Ukraine after more than three years of fighting.

Near the front line Thursday, Ukraine fired dozens of drones at Russia overnight into the early morning, wounding three people and sparking fires including at an oil refinery in the southern city of Volgograd.

Kyiv calls the strikes fair retaliation for Moscow's daily missile and drone barrages on its own civilians.

With such high stakes, all sides were pushing hard in the hours before Friday's meeting.

- Three-way meeting? -

Zelensky, who has refused to surrender territory to Russia, joined the call from Berlin with Trump, as did European leaders who voiced confidence afterward that the US leader would seek a ceasefire rather than concessions by Kyiv.

Trump has sent mixed messages, saying he could quickly organise a three-way summit afterward with both Zelensky and Putin, but also warning of his impatience with Putin.

"There may be no second meeting because, if I feel that it's not appropriate to have it because I didn't get the answers that we have to have, then we are not going to have a second meeting," Trump told reporters on Wednesday.

But Trump added: "If the first one goes okay, we'll have a quick second one," involving both Putin and Zelensky.

Zelensky, after being berated by Trump at a February meeting in the White House, has publicly supported US diplomacy but has made clear his deep scepticism.

"I have told my colleagues -- the US president and our European friends -- that Putin definitely does not want peace," Zelensky said.

As the war rages on in eastern Ukraine, Zelensky was in Berlin Wednesday joining Chancellor Friedrich Merz on an online call with other European leaders, and the NATO and EU chiefs, to show a united stance against Russia.

Starmer on Wednesday said Ukraine's military backers, the so-called Coalition of the Willing, had drawn up workable military plans in case of a ceasefire but were also ready to add pressure on Russia through sanctions.

"For three and a bit years this conflict has been going, we haven't got anywhere near... a viable way of bringing it to a ceasefire," Starmer told Wednesday's meeting of European leaders.

"Now we do have that chance, because of the work that the (US) president has put in," he said.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte declared: "The ball is now in Putin's court."

F.Stadler--VB