
UK and Ukraine agree to deepen ties as Zelensky meets Starmer
Zelensky met with Starmer at his Downing Street home, after earlier visiting King Charles III at Windsor Castle.
The trip comes on the eve of a NATO summit in The Hague, which Zelensky is due to attend.
Addressing Ukrainian military personnel undergoing training in the UK, Starmer said the pair had had "an excellent bilateral meeting" and agreed an "industrial military co-production agreement", which he called "a massive step forward in the contribution that we can continue to make".
Zelensky, speaking beside Starmer, insisted the deal "will be very strong and will transform both nations", although no details were released.
After the meeting, Starmer said it was "really a privilege, a pleasure" to welcome Zelensky, calling him "a regular now at Downing Street".
Starmer told the Ukrainian troops it was "really humbling" to see their "level of professionalism, commitment and bravery".
More than 50,000 troops have now been trained as part of the international partnership.
Zelensky said the scheme had helped "strengthen our army" and enabled Ukraine to "survive and fight".
The UK has been one of Ukraine's staunchest supporters since Russia invaded in early 2022, levelling rounds of sanctions against Moscow and supplying multiple packages of military aid.
Crucial summit
Starmer promised the support would continue "for the rest of the conflict" and help put Ukraine in "the strongest possible position" to negotiate a ceasefire.
Zelensky said his country was "very thankful to the UK... for such big support of Ukraine from the very beginning of this war".
The Ukrainian leader earlier travelled to Windsor Castle, where he "visited The King... and remained to luncheon", Buckingham Palace said.
Zelensky is expected at the NATO summit in The Hague on Tuesday and Wednesday, where Ukraine's allies will work "to ensure that Ukraine is in the best possible position as we go into the next stage of this conflict", according to Starmer.
NATO allies are poised to take a "quantum leap" by hiking defence spending to counter the threat of Russia, Secretary General Mark Rutte said on the eve of the two-day summit.
The alliance's 32 members will pledge to boost defence expenditure to five percent of gross domestic product, a key demand of President Donald Trump, who has long grumbled that the US pays too much for NATO.
NATO's members have thrashed out a compromise deal to dedicate at least 3.5 percent of GDP to core military needs by 2035, and 1.5 percent to broader security-related items like cyber-security and infrastructure.
"The defence investment plan that allies will agree in The Hague introduces a new baseline, five percent of GDP to be invested in defence," Rutte told reporters at a pre-summit news conference.
© 2025 AFP

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France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
Iran attacks US base in Qatar, Trump says ‘it's time for peace'
Iran announced it had launched missiles at a US base in Qatar Monday in retaliation for American strikes on key nuclear facilities, with US President Donald Trump shrugging off the response as "very weak" and saying it was now time to make peace. A US defence official said no one was hurt in the attack -- which Trump said Iran had given advanced notice of -- and oil prices sank afterwards as traders breathed a sigh of relief at what one analyst called the "somewhat measured" response. Qatar, which lies 190 kilometres (120 miles) south of Iran and is home to the largest US military facility in the Middle East, said its "air defences successfully intercepted a missile attack targeting Al Udeid Air Base". Iran's National Security Council confirmed having targeted the base "in response to the US aggressive and insolent action against Iran's nuclear sites and facilities". 07:33 In its statement, the council said the number of missiles used "was the same as the number of bombs that the US had used", in a signal that it had calibrated its response to be directly proportional. After more than a week of Israeli strikes on nuclear and military targets across Iran, the United States joined its ally's campaign on Sunday, carrying out attacks on three key Iranian nuclear facilities, including on an underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordo using massive bunker-busting bombs. "Iran has officially responded to our Obliteration of their Nuclear Facilities with a very weak response, which we expected, and have very effectively countered," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform after the attack, thanking Tehran "for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured". Adding that Iran had "gotten it all out of their 'system'," he said: "Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same." The New York Times, citing Iranian officials, reported that the response had been designed to allow "all sides an exit ramp", drawing a parallel to a similar Iranian attack on a US base in Iraq following Washington's assassination of top Iranian general in 2020. With international concern mounting that Israel 's campaign in Iran could lead to a regional spillover -- concern that only intensified after the US strikes -- French President Emmanuel Macron said after the Iranian retaliation that "the spiral of chaos must end". 'Right to respond' Iran's security council maintained that its "action does not pose any threat to our friendly and brotherly country, Qatar". But Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said his country "reserves the right to respond directly in a manner proportional to the nature and scale of this blatant aggression". Its much larger neighbour Saudi Arabia, historically a rival of Iran, condemned Tehran's attack and offered "all its capabilities to support the sisterly State of Qatar in any measures it takes". AFP reporters heard blasts in central Doha and in Lusail, north of the capital, on Monday evening, and saw projectiles moving across the night sky. The US defence official said Al Udeid was "attacked by short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles", and Ansari said it had been evacuated as a precaution ahead of time. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps said six missiles had hit the base, according to state media. 42:55 Iranians gathered in central Tehran on Monday night to celebrate the attack, images on state TV showed, with some waving the flag of the Islamic republic and chanting "Death to America". Earlier in the day, Qatar had announced the temporary closure of its airspace in light of "developments in the region", while foreign embassies there including that of the United States had warned their citizens to shelter in place. After the attack, Qatar said "the security situation in the country is stable, and there is no cause for concern". Tehran strikes Just as Iran was announcing the new attacks, blasts were heard in the north of Tehran, according to an AFP journalist, who reported yellow flashes typical of Iranian air defences in the sky over the capital shortly before 9:00 pm (1730 GMT). Earlier in the day Israel reported carrying out what it said were its most powerful strikes yet on Tehran. Iran, in turn, fired missile barrages at Israel. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the military hit sites in Tehran including Evin prison, which Katz said "holds political prisoners and regime opponents", as well as command centres for the domestic Basij paramilitary and the Revolutionary Guards. Iranian media and the Israeli military said Israel also struck Fordo on Monday "in order to obstruct access routes" to the site. Israeli strikes on Iran have killed more than 400 people, Iran's health ministry has said. Iran's attacks on Israel have killed 24 people, according to official figures. China urged both Iran and Israel to prevent the conflict from spilling over, warning of potential economic fallout. Oil prices fall Oil prices sank more than six percent on Monday after the attack. Around 1815 GMT, futures for West Texas Intermediate fell 6.5 percent to $69.96 a barrel, while Brent oil futures dropped 6.4 percent to $72.07 a barrel, its lowest level in 10 days. John Kilduff of Again Capital described the Iranian action as "somewhat measured". "This is a face-saving measure by the Iranians and hopefully the diplomatic off-ramp will be taken," Kilduff said. On Sunday, after the Pentagon stressed the goal of US intervention was not to topple the Iranian government, Trump had openly toyed with the idea. "If the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change???" Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.


France 24
4 hours ago
- France 24
Bluff and last-minute orders: Trump's path to Iran decision
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France 24
5 hours ago
- France 24
US strikes on Iran open rift in Trump's support base
Trump ran as an "America First" Republican who would avoid the foreign entanglements of his predecessors, tapping into his movement's unease about prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as more recent conflagrations in Gaza and Ukraine. Establishment Republicans -- and in particular the congressional party -- rallied behind their leader after Saturday's military action, welcoming what many see as an about-face and rejecting claims that the president had violated the Constitution. Beyond Washington's Beltway, some of the die-hard members of Trump's "Make America Great Again" coalition who follow him on the rally circuit also appear willing -- for now, at least -- to give him the benefit of the doubt. "I don't think we're going to end up in war. I think Trump is leader, and he's going to just obliterate them, and there won't be any war," 63-year-old Jane Sisk, a retired mother-of-six from Richmond, Virginia, told AFP. But the louder, more visible, more online faction of MAGA influencers and media personalities who oppose their government reaching beyond the US shoreline are desperate to sway Trump's supporters in the opposite direction. In a long post on X Monday, far-right lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene bemoaned having traveled the country campaigning for Trump, only to see him break his anti-interventionist covenant with his supporters. 'Bait and switch' "Only 6 months in and we are back into foreign wars, regime change, and world war 3," she thundered on the social media site. "It feels like a complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts, and neocon tv personalities that MAGA hates and who were NEVER TRUMPERS!" While the post was astonishing for its uncompromising language -- Greene appropriated a Democratic talking point to add that Trump was "not a king" -- it was far from the first sign of MAGA dissent. Thomas Massie -- a House conservative who has piqued Trump's irritation with anti-war posts -- told CBS that members of his faction within MAGA were "tired from all these wars." And as Trump gave his televised address confirming details of strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, his former top strategist Steve Bannon told viewers of his online "War Room" show that the president has "some work to do" to explain his decision. Other figures among Trump's right-wing support base have started to come around after initially voicing shock. Far-right influencer Charlie Kirk -- a leading MAGA anti-war voice before the weekend -- warned his millions of YouTube viewers that US involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict would cause "a major schism in the MAGA online community." 'Trust in Trump' But he appeared to have shifted his stance over the weekend, praising Trump for "prudence and decisiveness." The U-turn is symptomatic of a broader trend, analysts argue, among the softer MAGA isolationists to fall into line and simply embrace the White House's "trust in Trump" mantra now that they have lost the argument. Conservative Hoover Institution fellow Lanhee Chen believes the president will hold his coalition together as long as they see Saturday's action as more akin to the 2020 US assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani than the start of a protracted war. "I think you saw some of that disagreement leading up to last night. I haven't seen a lot of disagreement since then," Chen told NBC on Sunday. Trust in Trump could be eroded, his allies warn, if Iran retaliates, dragging the United States into an escalating cycle of violence. But, for now, the president's coalition is on board with his warnings over Iran's nuclear threat. Polling conducted after the US strikes will take several days to filter through, but in the latest J.L. Partners survey just ahead of the mission, 67 percent of "MAGA Republicans" agreed that "Israel's war is America's war" while only 20 percent wanted the country to remain on the sidelines. "I don't think Trump's going to send soldiers over there," said Sisk, the Virginia supporter interviewed by AFP. "I don't think he's gonna get us involved in the war, just like he said." © 2025 AFP