UK, France and Germany back Zelenskyy's call for direct Putin talks as Russian drone hits Chernobyl fuel store
Meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in London on June 8, the leaders of the UK, Germany and France endorsed his call for direct ceasefire talks with Vladimir Putin, with US and European participation. Putin had already snubbed Zelenskyy's open letter proposing a face-to-face meeting, saying he saw "no point" until a deal was agreed. Hours earlier, a Russian Shahed drone struck a spent-nuclear-fuel storage building near the defunct Chernobyl plant; the IAEA said radiation levels stayed stable.
The leaders of Britain, Germany and France threw their weight behind Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's call for direct ceasefire talks with Russia on June 8, after Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosted Zelenskyy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Emmanuel Macron in London. In a joint statement, the three -- who form the informal E3 grouping, among Ukraine's main backers -- endorsed a proposal for direct dialogue between Zelenskyy and President Vladimir Putin, with US and European participation, aimed at securing a ceasefire. "Leaders commended President Zelenskyy's call for an end to the war, negotiated by diplomatic means, as set out in his letter to the president," the statement said.
The endorsement referred to an open letter Zelenskyy sent Putin last week proposing a face-to-face meeting -- an offer the Russian leader rejected as insincere, saying he saw "no point" in meeting until a peace deal had been agreed. Zelenskyy used the London talks to press for more weapons, writing on X that he had told Starmer of "the need for additional missiles for air defense systems and the things that are important for protecting energy infrastructure and preparing for winter." Britain and France lead the "Coalition of the Willing" assembling security guarantees for Ukraine, while Germany is Kyiv's largest backer in absolute terms.
Hours before the talks, a Russian drone struck a spent-nuclear-fuel storage facility about 15 km (9 miles) from the defunct Chernobyl plant, site of the 1986 disaster. Ukraine's General Staff and state atomic agency said a container-receiving building had been partially destroyed but that no spent fuel was present at the time; a resulting fire was extinguished with no injuries. The IAEA said it had been informed, that radiation levels remained stable, and that a team would visit the site "to inspect the impact."
Zelenskyy called it "an extremely vile Russian strike," writing that "a 'shahed' hit one of the buildings of the Centralized Spent Fuel Storage Facility." Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said "Russia's nuclear blackmail and threats to nuclear safety are systemic, deliberate, and unacceptable." It was not the first such incident: in February 2025 a Russian drone hit the containment arch over the damaged Chernobyl reactor, an attack Moscow denied, and the two sides have repeatedly accused each other of striking the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant.
Separately, a Ukrainian drone strike on a passenger train on the Moscow-Simferopol route killed the assistant driver and wounded the driver, said Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed head of occupied Crimea, who added that no passengers were harmed. The London meeting was the latest in a week of E3 diplomacy as the US-led negotiating track remained stalled, following the trio's June 7 pledge to scale up Ukraine's air defences.