Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France and Germany have warned of the “urgent need” to ramp up production of defensive weapons against Russia’s hypersonic Oreshnik missiles, after a late-night summit in Downing Street on Sunday.

Alongside Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, the leaders also called on Vladimir Putin to agree “an immediate and complete ceasefire” and said the “current line of contact” between the two sides should be the starting point for any negotiations.

Ahead of the talks, President Zelensky had warned his country could maintain its recent attacks deep into Russia if the war continues, as he pledged Ukraine will not “silently die”.

The renewed pressure on Russia comes after it suffered a series of military setbacks in recent months.

But in a sign of the continued havoc the conflict is wreaking on Ukraine, the talks took place hours after a drone strike struck a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel near the Chernobyl power plant.

After their meeting, the leaders also announced plans for further military support for Ukraine and greater economic pressure on Russia.

Earlier this week, President Zelensky proposed a face-to-face meeting with Putin, although the Russian leader has so far rejected the idea.

In May, Ukraine hit out after Russia said it had deployed its powerful hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile during a large-scale drone and missile assault on Kyiv.

It was the third recorded use of the Oreshnik missile in the war.

Putin has described the weapon as travelling at Mach 10 and said in 2024 that “there are currently no ways of counteracting this weapon”.

Ukraine’s shortage of air defence systems, in part because of US stocks being depleted by the Iran war, is thought to have left civilians especially vulnerable to ballistic missiles.

Read More: Europe to ramp up defence against Putin’s hypersonic missiles