As Zelenskyy Warns of Being Strong-Armed By The US, The UK Will Have To Work Harder To Defend Ukraine

“Now, we have dangerous days ahead of the elections” is how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy put it in an exclusive interview with Bloomberg in Kyiv, but he’s not just speaking for himself and the Ukrainian people. Donald Trump’s electioneering is likely to impact the UK, too.

The US president is pulling levers to try to bring fuel prices down and his Republican vote share up. Or at least picking a fight to suggest someone else is responsible for high US pump prices. The Trump logic is that Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, and particularly diesel ones, are one reason prices are so high. Which all means that while Westminster focuses on the run up to B-Day — the Budget is next Wednesday — the period that may be of greater consequence runs up to the US midterms on Nov. 3.

Zelenskyy told our team that Trump seems intent on forcing him to accept a peace deal regardless of terms and that his offer of a compromise (Ukraine stops targeting Russian diesel, but Washington resumes sending Patriot systems to Ukraine to protect their facilities) has been ignored. Yet once the midterms are done, in charming optimism, he believes there could be a change of vibe as Trump comes to care less about gas prices: “Life will continue” the Ukrainian president told us, “and I believe it will be calmer.”

But there is a more worrying scenario causing concern in Britain’s foreign-policy establishment: Reports of a proposed Trump-Xi-Putin summit that have emerged in the last 24 hours, detailed in our pieces today, look like an attempt to cut a deal that may not include Ukraine, Europe or the UK.

This was not the plan for Prime Minister Andy Burnham, but I have to say, it was fairly inevitable it would become so. He entered 10 Downing Street adamant he would spend less time on the international stage. There had been a view among Labour MPs that predecessor Keir Starmer spent too long on foreign affairs — remember “Never Here Keir”? But events of the last few weeks are pulling the PM in, not allowing him to step away. This is documented in this excellent long read by Bloomberg’s Alex Wickham and Chloe Chaplain where officials tell them their worries of a “darker reality” where the US is not on Ukraine’s side.

Britain has, in an unbroken line from Boris Johnson to Rishi Sunak to Keir Starmer, made itself one of Ukraine’s most steadfast allies. But that role required intense, time-consuming diplomacy of Burnham’s three predecessors and will now do so of the current PM. The nature of modern statecraft means that much of this work will have to be done by the Prime Minister himself.

There are other reasons Burnham will be needed more, not less. This weekend’s riots in France have strengthened National Rally leader Marine Le Pen’s standing as a frontrunner in the country’s presidential election. If there is a Le Pen government next year, it will not be as solid for Ukraine as Macron’s France was. Last week Le Pen warned that, in France’s current fiscal state, it can’t afford to finance Ukraine.

So yes, there are dangerous days ahead for many leaders. Not just Zelenskyy.

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Markets Today: Vive le Pound

Hi, I’m Sam from the MT blog. French turmoil has bruised the country’s bonds and weighed on its stock market, and the effect has been broader than that too. It’s left the euro in the doldrums.

The single currency has touched the lowest against the pound since May 2025. Worries about French finances are doing a lot of the damage, with huge political risk facing the entire eurozone.

And our colleague Ven Ram from the Markets Live blog points out that the proportion of investors positioning for the euro to weaken versus strengthen is the highest in a decade. So the pain could get worse.

Which leaves the pound in a relatively stable state, all things told. That’s a welcome sight given our own political risk lurking around the corner, plus the raft of jobs and inflation data this week.

Read the Markets Today live blog for rolling news and up-to-the-minute analysis during UK market hours.

The big number

56%The percentage of new UK homebuyers whose mortgage payments exceeded their previous monthly rent.

One big story

UK Debt Is a Buy for Those Betting on a Play-It-Safe BudgetSome big investors are betting that UK Chancellor John Healey will stick to fiscal discipline in his first budget, setting off a gilts rally.

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Allegra Stratton worked for former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor and runs an environmental consultancy, Zeroism.

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