EU says US ‘still our biggest ally’ despite release of policy paper supporting Europe’s far-right – as it happened

Keir Starmer is scheduled to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Downing Street on Monday, the Press Association reports.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, will also be in attendance, according to PA. The four leaders plan on discussing the ongoing peace talks between US and Ukrainian officials.

Russian forces launched “a massive strike” overnight, the Russian defense ministry said in a post on Telegram, in response to what it called Ukrainian attacks on civilian targets.

Using high-precision, long-range air- and ground-based weapon - including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and long-range drones – the strike targeted Ukrainian military-industrial enterprises, the energy facilities that support their operation and the port infrastructure used by the Ukrainian forces, the ministry said.

“Russia continues to disregard any peace efforts and instead strikes critical civilian infrastructure, including our energy system and railways,” Andrii Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said on X. “This shows that no decisions to strengthen Ukraine and raise pressure on Russia can be delayed. And especially not under the pretext of peace process.”

Donald Trump’s advisers and Ukrainian officials said Friday that they will meet for a third day of talks as the US president pushes Kyiv and Moscow to agree to a US-mediated proposal to end nearly four years of war.

“Both parties agreed that real progress toward any agreement depends on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace, including steps toward de-escalation and cessation of killings,” officials said in a statement released after a second day of meetings in Florida on Friday.

The talks between US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, follow discussions between Vladimir Putin and the US envoys at the Kremlin on Tuesday.

The protective shield over the Chornobyl disaster nuclear reactor in Ukraine has degraded enough after a drone strike earlier this year that it can no longer perform its main function of blocking radiation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced.

An inspection last week revealed that the steel confinement structure, which was painstakingly built at a cost of €1.5bn ($1.75bn) next to the destroyed reactor, “had lost its primary safety functions,” said Rafael Grossi, the IAEA director general.

While some repairs had been carried out, “comprehensive restoration remains essential to prevent further degradation and ensure long-term nuclear safety,” Grossi said.

The February drone strike blew a hole in the structure, but the UN said then that radiation levels remained normal and stable and that there were no reports of radiation leaks. While Ukrainian authorities said the drone was Russian, Moscow denied it had attacked the plant.

Work on the structure was completed in 2019 by a Europe-led initiative. The 1986 Chornobyl explosion – which happened when Ukraine was under Moscow’s rule as part of the Soviet Union – had sent radiation across Europe.

Overnight Russian missile and drone strikes left parts of Ukraine without power on Saturday morning, Ukraine’s energy ministry said on Telegram.

The strikes hit energy infrastructure in the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Lviv, Odesa, Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions, according to the ministry.

Crews were working on Saturday to restore power in the Odesa, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv regions, with hourly outage schedules and capacity limitation schedules for industrial consumers and businesses in effect.

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Europe and the war in Ukraine.

The Trump administration released a policy paper on Friday that made explicit Washington’s support for Europe’s nationalist far-right parties.

The 33-page US National Security Strategy, which includes a signed introduction from Donald Trump, appears to push the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, saying several countries risk becoming “majority non-European” and Europe faces “the real and stark prospect of civilizational erasure”.

Speaking at the Doha Forum, an annual diplomatic conference in Qatar’s capital on Saturday, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas addressed the policy paper by reiterating that the “US is still our biggest ally,” AFP reports. “Of course, there’s a lot of criticism, but I think some of it is also true,” Kallas said.

Kallas continued: “I think we haven’t always seen eye to eye on different topics, but I think the overall principle is still there. We are the biggest allies, and we should stick together.”