VOLODYMYR Zelensky joins hands with Europe’s leaders outside No 10 — as he gets closer to funding the war with frozen Russian assets.
PM Sir Keir Starmer yesterday hosted crisis talks along with France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Friedrich Merz.
UK officials say the plan to unlock £8billion worth of sovereign Kremlin assets is on the cusp of success.
The EU may also budge on their £120billion of Russian assets after an attempt was blocked by Belgium over its fears of legal risks.
A breakthrough is hoped for after Mr Zelensky said he “can’t manage” without EU and US support.
It comes after Donald Trump appeared to ramp up pressure on Mr Zelensky, saying he was disappointed Ukraine’s leader had “not read” a new peace deal that Vladimir Putin is “fine” with.
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Ukraine faces daily 16-hour blackouts and is set for the worst winter of the war after Russia blitzed its energy infrastructure.
Kyiv has accused the Kremlin of “weaponizing” the cold by trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid to deny civilians access to heat, light and running water.
Vitaliy Zaychenko, head of Ukraine’s Ukrenergo electricity board, said: “The most challenging situation, as before, is in border and frontline regions.
“Emergency outage schedules are in place there, because hourly outage schedules could not stabilize the situation.”
He added: “The situation is quite difficult… We are no longer talking about days, we are talking about weeks to recover.”
In the last week, Moscow has launched 1,600 drones, 1,200 glide bombs and nearly 70 missiles.