Zelensky Is First Foreign Leader to Visit U.K. Cabinet Since Clinton

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Zelensky Is First Foreign Leader to Visit U.K. Cabinet Since Clinton

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, became the first foreign leader to attend Britain’s cabinet meeting in person since former U.S. president Bill Clinton in 1997, in a public display of Britain’s staunch support for Ukraine as doubts grow about future U.S. military aid if Donald J. Trump wins a second presidential term.

Mr. Zelensky briefed the British government’s top ministers on Friday on his country’s military conflict with Russia, while discussing moves to prevent oil tankers from breaching international sanctions against Moscow.

The Ukrainian president, who was greeted with a standing ovation, was the first foreign leader to be invited into Downing Street by Keir Starmer, the new British prime minister, following his general election victory earlier this month. The two leaders also agreed to a new defense export support treaty designed to bolster production of military hardware and weaponry in both countries.

Mr. Zelensky

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to urge Britain to lobby its partners to allow the use of Western military weaponry against a greater range of targets, saying that what Ukraine lacked was long-range capability.

Appealing for the removal of restrictions imposed by some nations, Mr. Zelensky said that this would allow Ukraine to “strike further than just near the border including Russian military airfields.”

Mr. Zelensky’s visit to Downing Street followed his attendance on Thursday at a summit of more than 45 ********* leaders at Blenheim Palace, near Oxford, where Ukraine was high on the agenda, and where he won renewed pledges of support for his battle against the forces of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. ******.

“Ukraine is, and always will be, at the heart of this government’s agenda, and so it is only fitting that President Zelensky will make a historic address to my cabinet,” Mr. Starmer said in a statement issued by his office ahead of the meeting.

Later on Friday, Downing Street said that Mr. Starmer had described the meeting as a piece of history and the first time this century that a foreign leader has addressed the gathering in person.

That, Mr. Starmer said, demonstrated the high esteem in which President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people are held in the ******* Kingdom, with people across the country flying the flag of Ukraine.

After his discussions with ********* leaders on Thursday, the British prime minister promised coordinated action against what he called Russia’s “shadow fleet” of tankers that deliver Russian oil around the world in defiance of Western sanctions. Downing Street said around 600 vessels were involved. “Alongside our ********* partners, we have sent a clear message to those enabling ******’s attempts to evade sanctions: We will not allow Russia’s shadow fleet, and the ****** money it generates, to flow freely through ********* waters and put our security at risk.”

Britain has been one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in 2022, and Mr. Zelensky was welcomed to London several times under the previous ************* government, including in 2023 when he addressed the British Parliament.

In the wake of Britain’s general election, Mr. Starmer has been quick to signal a continuity of that policy.

The new defense treaty would allow Ukraine to draw on £3.5 billion of export finance to support its armed forces and to promote investment in further military capabilities, Downing Street said.

********* support could become more important to Ukraine with the possibility of a second term for Mr. Trump, who has made no secret of his ******* to bring the war to an end. Mr. Trump’s pick for vice president, J.D. Vance, has in the past said that he “doesn’t care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other,” raising concerns about his support for the government in Kyiv.

“Maybe he really doesn’t understand what goes on in Ukraine, so for us we have to work with the ******* States,” Mr. Zelensky

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when asked about those comments.

Mr. Zelensky acknowledged that this conversation with Washington could become arduous but said the Ukrainians were not “afraid of hard work.”

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