UK and EU at Zelenskyy’s side in Washington for meeting with Trump

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the move to go directly to a peace agreement without a ceasefire first ‘complicates the situation’. Photograph: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP

European leaders including Keir Starmer will join Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a White House meeting with Donald Trump on Monday in an extraordinary joint effort to push back on a US-backed plan that would allow Russia to take further Ukrainian territory.

As well as the UK prime minister, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, Italy’s PM, Giorgia Meloni, and the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, will all accompany Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.