Britain moved to reinforce support for Ukraine on March 1, 2025, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed President Volodymyr Zelensky to Downing Street and signed a £2.26 billion loan for military supplies.
The BBC report says the money will be repaid using profits from frozen Russian assets, making the deal a clear example of how the UK and its partners are trying to use Russian-linked funds to support Ukraine’s war effort. Zelensky’s visit came just after a difficult meeting with Donald Trump in Washington that ended in an open row, adding extra diplomatic weight to the London stop.
Starmer told Zelensky he had “full backing across the United Kingdom,” and the Ukrainian president said he was grateful for the country’s support from the start of the war. The optics mattered: crowds outside Downing Street cheered the Ukrainian leader, and the meeting was designed to show that London remained firmly in his corner.
The loan was only one part of a larger round of diplomacy. Starmer was also preparing to host a summit of European and Canadian leaders in London later that day, with the war in Ukraine and Europe’s response to the Trump administration’s approach to peace talks high on the agenda. Zelensky was due to meet King Charles as well.
The packet shows how much the visit was shaped by the transatlantic fallout. Starmer had held cordial talks with Trump a day earlier and was trying to position himself as a bridge between Washington and Europe. After the White House clash, he phoned both Trump and Zelensky to help steady relations and keep the peace process moving.
For Zelensky, the London meetings also offered a chance to recover diplomatic ground after the public dispute in Washington. He said he still wanted Trump’s support and stressed that Ukraine wanted peace, but only on terms that protected its freedom and survival. His remarks suggest the fight for allied backing remains as important as the fight on the battlefield.
The summit itself was expected to focus on Europe’s defence capacity, security guarantees for Ukraine and the possibility of a European peacekeeping force. The BBC report says those discussions were taking place against the backdrop of renewed fighting, including a drone attack on Kharkiv and Ukraine’s continued battlefield losses. The message from London was clear: support for Ukraine was not being withdrawn, and British policy was being tied more tightly than ever to the outcome of the war.
