Volodymyr Zelensky touched down in London this morning. The Ukrainian president is heading straight to Downing Street. Whitehall sources are calling it a moment of crystallisation. Europe, fractious and divided for weeks, now looks to British leadership.
The optics are deliberate. No.10 wanted this. A wartime leader on British soil, flanked by Starmer. It signals trust. It signals who is setting the agenda. Behind the scenes, the mood in the Cabinet Room is triumphal. One minister told me: "We are back at the centre of the chessboard."
Why now? The diplomatic scramble. Last week’s NATO summit spooked many European capitals. The US commitment wavered. Germany hesitated. France prevaricated. Britain, by contrast, moved fast. Starmer’s quiet phone calls to Berlin and Paris paid off. The readout from those calls is guarded, but the result is clear: a united front, with London as the fulcrum.
Downing Street will announce a new package of military aid. But the real prize is political. Zelensky needs assurances that if Washington pulls back, Europe will hold the line. Starmer will offer that. Not in writing, but in handshake deals. That’s how it works here.
The opposition is watching closely. Tory backbenchers, who spent months accusing Starmer of dithering on defence, are now grudgingly silent. They cannot complain. The polls show a bounce for Labour on foreign policy. That stings.
Inside the Ukrainian delegation, there is relief. One aide told me: "We know where we stand with London. That is not always true elsewhere." It is a pointed remark. Slovakia, Hungary, even parts of the EU bureaucracy have become unreliable.
What happens next? The talks will stretch into the evening. Dinner at No.10. Then a press conference. Expect emotional language. Expect talk of solidarity. But the real work will be done in the margins, in the corridors, by officials exchanging pieces of paper. That is where commitments are made.
I hear there is also a quiet push for a new European security architecture. Britain wants to lead that. It means more than NATO. It means a British-French-German core, with the US as a partner, not the commander. Zelensky is the test case. If this works, the template could be applied elsewhere.
For now, the cameras are on the black door of No.10. Zelensky steps out, waves, walks in. The game is on.
