LONDON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in London on Tuesday for talks with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the British government said, as European countries look to keep international attention on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while the unfolding Iran war engages world leaders.
Starmer’s office said NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will also join the meeting at 10 Downing St. to discuss peacemaking efforts in Ukraine and “the need to maintain sanctions pressure on Russia.”
The meeting comes days after the U.S. temporarily waived some Russian oil sanctions in a bid to ease pressure on global supplies triggered by the war in the Middle East, which was sparked by the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran starting on Feb. 28.
Zelenskyy criticized Washington’s move to ease sanctions, saying it would provide a windfall for Moscow to keep up its attacks on Ukraine.
U.S. President Donald Trump says he wants to secure a peace deal that ends Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II and has rattled the continent’s leaders, who reckon that Russia could pose a credible security threat to the European Union by the end of the decade.
But U.S.-brokered talks between delegations from Moscow and Kyiv, which so far have yielded no significant progress on key issues, have lost momentum amid the Middle East conflict.
Ukraine is the “ultimate loser” from the war with Iran, said Ed Arnold, Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
That, he said, is because the war is draining stocks of American air defense missiles that are crucial for Kyiv to shoot down Russian missiles and is diverting Washington’s attention from Russia-Ukraine talks on ending the war.
Ukrainian teams have recently visited Gulf countries to discuss mutual interests, according to Zelenskyy.
It is important for Ukraine to secure deals with Gulf states for advanced air defense systems in exchange for Ukrainian anti-drone expertise and technology, said François Heisbourg, special adviser at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris.
Trump has spurned Zelenskyy’s offer of help for the United States and its Persian Gulf partners in fighting Iranian drones. Ukraine has become one of the world’s leading producers of high-tech, battle-tested drone interceptors.
British officials say Russia and Iran are collaborating on drone technology and tactics in the Middle East. Drone combat experts from the U.K. and Ukraine have been sent to the region to help Iran’s neighbors repel its drone attacks.
Starmer’s office said the U.K. and Ukraine will sign a deal combining “Ukraine’s expertise and the U.K.’s industrial base to manufacture and supply drones and innovative capabilities.” Britain is also funding an “AI Center of Excellence” in conjunction with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
Zelenskyy, announcing his arrival in London on X, said his priorities are “more security and opportunities for Ukraine.”
Starmer said in a statement that “drones, electronic warfare and rapid battlefield innovation are now central to national and economic security, and that has only been further magnified by the conflict in the Middle East.”
“By deepening our defense partnerships, we are strengthening Ukraine’s ability to defend itself from Russia’s brutal, ongoing attacks, while ensuring the U.K. and our allies are better prepared to meet the threats of the future.”
Russia's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that its air defenses intercepted and destroyed 206 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russian regions, the annexed Crimean Peninsula and the Azov Sea. A total of 40 intercepted drones were flying toward Moscow, the ministry said.
Asked about an increase in Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow over the past few days, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that authorities in Kyiv were “continuing absolutely futile resistance" against Russia's invasion.
Zelenskyy said late Monday that counterattacks by Ukrainian forces at eastern and southern points along the front line have wrecked Moscow's plans for a March offensive.
His comments couldn't be independently verified, but the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Monday that Ukrainian counterattacks “are likely constraining” some Russian offensive operations.
Ukraine’s air force said that Russia launched 178 long-range drones of various types across the country overnight, starting late Monday, with 154 of them either intercepted or jammed while 22 more struck their targets.
In the southern Ukraine city of Zaporizhzhia, a Russian strike damaged a terminal of Ukraine’s biggest private delivery company, Nova Poshta, the company said on Telegram. Eight people were wounded, according to Ivan Fedorov, the head of the regional military administration.
Associated Press writers Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine and Emma Burrows in London contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
A post office storehouse ruined by Russia's missile in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)
Sappers examine the site of a Russian missile strike which hit a post office storehouse in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)
Sappers examine the site of a Russian missile strike which hit a post office storehouse in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Rescuers recovered more bodies from the rubble of a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul on Tuesday after an overnight airstrike killed more than 400 people, according to officials, in a dramatic escalation of a conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan that is now in its third week.
Pakistan rejected Afghanistan’s accusation that it targeted the hospital, insisting its strikes, which were also conducted in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, were aimed at military facilities. It dismissed Afghanistan's claims of hundreds of casualties as propaganda.
The casualties were taken to several hospitals in the area, where crowds gathered to search for their loved ones among the injured and the dead. It wasn't possible to independently confirm the death toll.
The conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as airstrikes inside Afghanistan. International calls for a ceasefire have gone unheeded.
The overnight strike came hours after Afghan officials said that the two sides exchanged fire along the border, killing four people in Afghanistan.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of providing safe haven for militants who frequently carry out attacks inside Pakistan, especially for the Pakistani Taliban, a group separate but closely allied with the Afghan Taliban who took over Afghanistan in 2021 in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led troops. The group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. Kabul denies the charge.
In a late-night post on X, Afghanistan’s deputy government spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said the airstrike hit the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital, a 2,000-bed facility in Kabul, at about 9 p.m. local time and that large sections of the facility had been destroyed.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said at least 408 people had been killed and 265 injured.
Night-time footage from local television stations showed security forces using flashlights as they carried out casualties while firefighters struggled to extinguish flames among the ruins of a building.
The Omid hospital was renamed and expanded in size roughly a year ago from the Ibn Sina Drug Addiction Treatment Hospital as part of government plans to stamp out drug addiction in the country.
The site, near Kabul's international airport, is located beside a former NATO military base, Camp Phoenix, where U.S. forces used to train the Afghan National Army. After the Taliban seized control of the country in 2021, the base was taken over by Afghanistan’s new authorities. It wasn't immediately clear what was now housed on the site of the former base.
A reporter for The Associated Press in an area near the site at the time of the strike said he heard a military jet fly overhead followed by a very powerful explosion.
Pakistan's Information Ministry said in an X post that the Pakistani military had “precisely targeted” Camp Phoenix, which it said was now a “military terrorist ammunition and equipment storage site.” However, it said that the hospital was “multiple kilometers” away from the former camp and accused Afghan officials of lying. Google Maps also shows another location, east of Kabul city, also labeled as Camp Phoenix.
“Another important question also lingers, as to why would an alleged drug rehabilitation facility be colocated with lethal ammunition storage site in a military camp? This also remains unanswered,” the Information Ministry wrote.
Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the strike, accusing Pakistan of “targeting hospitals and civilian sites to perpetrate horrors.” He said those killed were “innocent civilians and addicts.”
“We strongly condemn this crime and consider such an act to be against all accepted principles and a crime against humanity,” he said in a separate post on X.
Rescue team worker Allah Mohammad Farooq said that hundreds had been killed.
“When we arrived here, everyone was buried under the rubble,” he said. “We then used a crane to pull them out. Most of the people were dead, and many are still trapped under the debris.”
A man sitting outside the site broke down in tears as he recounted hearing about the bombing. Haji Najibullah said his son and other relatives were being treated in the hospital.
“We have no information about who is alive and who is buried under the rubble,” he said. “Only God knows who may have survived and who may be injured.”
The U.N. human rights expert in Afghanistan, Richard Bennet, said in an X post that he was “dismayed by fresh reports of #Pakistan airstrikes in #Afghanistan and resulting civilian casualties.” Offering his condolences, he added: “I urge parties to de-escalate, exercise maximum restraint & respect international law, including the protection of civilians and civilian objects such as hospitals.”
In Islamabad, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar rejected Afghanistan's accusations that Pakistan had targeted a hospital as “entirely baseless.”
Tarar said the “Afghan Taliban regime is peddling yet another falsehood,” and that Pakistan had only engaged military and militant targets. He said Pakistan had targeted facilities “being directly or indirectly used to plan, facilitate, shelter, train or abet terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.”
Tarar said overnight strikes in Kabul and in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar were “precise, deliberate and professional,” and denied any civilian infrastructure was hit.
“No hospital, no drug rehabilitation center, and no civilian facility was targeted,” he said.
The fighting — the most severe between the two neighbors — began in late February after Afghanistan launched cross-border attacks in response to Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan that Kabul said killed civilians. The clashes disrupted a ceasefire brokered by Qatar in October, after earlier fighting killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants.
Pakistan has declared that it's in “open war” with Afghanistan. The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.
On Saturday, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said that Afghanistan’s Taliban administration crossed a “red line” by deploying drones that wounded several civilians in Pakistan last week.
Ahmed reported from Islamabad, and Becatoros from Athens, Greece. Habib Rahmani in Kabul and Patrick Quinn in Bangkok, Thailand, contributed.
A body lies entangled in the rubble of a drug rehabilitation hospital after it was hit by a late-Monday airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
Residents and rescue workers inspect the site of a late-Monday airstrike at a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
Residents and volunteers inspect the site of a late-Monday airstrike at a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
A little girl and a woman watch as rescue workers and officials inspect the site of a late-Monday airstrike at a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
Residents and rescue workers inspect the site of a late-Monday airstrike at a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
Firefighters work at the site of a late-Monday airstrike at a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
Residents and volunteers inspect the site of a late-Monday airstrike at a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
