British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to London on Thursday in a show of the UK's support for Ukraine a day before a critical US-Russia summit is set to take place in Alaska.

The two embraced warmly outside Starmer’s offices at 10 Downing Street without making any comments. Around an hour later, Starmer walked Zelensky back to his waiting car.

Starmer's office released a statement following the meeting saying that Friday's talks present a"viable chance to make progress" on ending the Ukraine war.

The two leaders "agreed there had been a powerful sense of unity and a strong resolve to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine," the statement said.

"They then looked ahead to tomorrow's talks between President Trump and President Putin in Alaska, which present a viable chance to make progress as long as Putin takes action to prove he is serious about peace."

Zelensky's trip to the British capital came a day after he took part in virtual meetings from Berlin with US President Donald Trump and the leaders of several European countries.

Those leaders said Trump had assured them he would make a priority of trying to achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in Anchorage.

Both Zelensky and the Europeans have worried the bilateral US-Russia summit would leave them and their interests sidelined. They fear that any conclusions reached could favour Moscow, leaving Ukraine and Europe's future security in jeopardy with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine now in its fourth year.

Yet some of those leaders, like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron, praised Wednesday's video conference with Trump as constructive. Speaking after the meetings to reporters, Trump warned of “very severe consequences” for Russia if Putin does not agree to stop the war against Ukraine after Friday's meeting.

High stakes

The Kremlin on Thursday said the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska will start at 11:30am local time. Putin’s foreign policy advisor, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters that Trump and Putin will first sit down for a one-on-one meeting.

Aside from Putin, the Russian delegation will include Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund Kirill Dmitriev. Following the meetings between Trump and Putin and their delegations, the two leaders will hold a joint press conference, Ushakov said.

Starmer on Wednesday said the Alaska summit would be “hugely important,” and could be a “viable” path to a ceasefire in Ukraine. But he also alluded to European concerns that Trump may strike a deal that forces Ukraine to cede territory to Russia, and warned that Western allies must be prepared to step up pressure on Russia if necessary.

During a call Wednesday among leaders of countries involved in the “coalition of the willing” – those who are prepared to help police any future peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv – Starmer stressed that any deal reached on bringing the fighting to an end must protect the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine.

“International borders cannot be, and must not be changed by force,’’ he said, adding that robust security guarantees must accompany any ceasefire to"ensure that any peace, if there is peace, is lasting peace and Ukraine can defend its territorial integrity”.

Kyiv has long insisted that safeguards against future Russian attacks provided by its Western allies would be a precondition for achieving a durable end to the fighting in Ukraine. Yet many Western governments have been hesitant to commit to engaging their military personnel.

Countries in the “coalition of the willing,” which include France and the UK, have been trying for months to secure US security backing should it be required. Following Wednesday's virtual meetings, Macron said Trump told the assembled leaders that while NATO must not be part of future security guarantees, “the United States and all the parties involved should take part”.

“It’s a very important clarification that we have received,” Macron said.

Trump did not reference any US commitments to providing security guarantees during his comments to reporters on Wednesday.

'Human lives are priceless'

With another high-level meeting on their country's future on the horizon, some Ukrainians expressed skepticism that any breakthroughs would be achieved during Friday's US-Russia summit.

Oleksandra Kozlova, 39, who works at a digital agency in Kyiv, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that she believes Ukrainians “have already lost hope” that meaningful progress can be made on ending the 3 1/2-year-old war.

“I don’t think this round will be decisive,” she said."There have already been enough meetings and negotiations promising us, ordinary people, that something will be resolved, that things will get better, that the war will end. Unfortunately, this has not happened, so personally I don’t see any changes coming.”

Anton Vyshniak, a car salesman in Kyiv, said Ukraine's priority now should be saving the lives of its troops, even at the expense of making territorial concessions.

“At the moment, the most important thing is to preserve the lives of male and female military personnel. After all, there are not many human resources left," he said."Borders are borders, but human lives are priceless. Therefore, some principles can be disregarded here.”

As Europe holds its breath on the eve of the Alaska summit, Moscow appears to be pushing ever harder to consolidate its territorial gains in Ukraine's devastated Donetsk region. Russia said on Thursday its troops had captured two new settlements in eastern Ukraine.

The defence ministry said Russian forces captured the village of Iskra and the small town of Shcherbynivka in Ukraine's Donetsk region, which the Kremlin claimed to have annexed in September 2022.

Shcherbynivka is near the mining town of Toretsk, captured by Russian troops in February, and Kostiantynivka – one of the last large urban areas in the Donetsk region still held by Ukraine.

The Russian army has accelerated its gains in recent months.

Zelensky on Tuesday conceded that Russian forces had advanced by up to 10 kilometres in a narrow section of the front line near the coal mining town of Dobropillia.

The Russian army's gains on Tuesday were the biggest for a single 24-hour period in over a year, according to an AFP analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).