UK to host Ukraine talks amid Moscow speculation

David Lammy will host US and European negotiators for fresh talks about Ukraine today amid speculation that Russia has told Washington it may be willing to drop its claim to parts of Ukraine it does not occupy.

- Dan Sabbagh Luke Harding Kyiv

The price would include the US making concessions to Moscow such as recognising Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea - though Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said no such proposal had been shared with him by the White House and that Kyiv could not endorse it.

It had been hoped that Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, would attend the talks in London, but the US state department said yesterday that would no longer be possible and that Keith Kellogg, the White House's Ukraine envoy would go instead.

Scepticism in Europe that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is willing to end the war has been reinforced by events over Easter weekend, when Ukraine reported thousands of violations of a short truce announced by Moscow.