Stressing the need for “everyone to work together”, Starmer threw his backing behind Zelenskyy’s decision to suspend elections in Ukraine while the country is riven by conflict, citing a precedent in the UK during the second world war, according to Downing Street.

President Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy an “embattled and courageous leader” on Friday — striking a very different tone on the leader that Trump called a “dictator without elections” just earlier this week.