Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in the U.K. on Monday for talks with new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, with Britain set to offer Kyiv fresh help to breach Russian air defenses.

“The key priorities are air defense, maritime security, and joint defense production,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post on his arrival. “Over the years of the full-scale war, we have built the strongest relationship in the entire history of cooperation between Ukraine and the United Kingdom.”

The U.K. is expected to give Ukraine rights to produce its “Stone Cloak” device that is said to stop Russian air-defense systems from tracking and targeting drones. Burnham will underline continued British support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion under his leadership at the talks with Zelenskyy, officials said.

The visit comes ahead of Zelenskyy’s planned meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, where he’ll seek more help to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses against Russian strikes, according to a person familiar with the matter.

They’re also likely to discuss sanctions pressure on Russia and next steps in plans to allow Ukraine to produce Patriot air-defense missiles under license, the person said, asking not to be identified because the matter isn’t public.

The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, according to a White House official, who asked not to be identified discussing the U.S. president’s plans.

Ukraine is waging a campaign of long-range drone and missile strikes in Russia aiming to inflict heavy economic costs on President Vladimir Putin’s war machine and undermine Kremlin efforts to portray the conflict as distant from the lives of ordinary citizens.

Attacks on oil refineries and fuel depots have led to widespread gasoline shortages in Russia, while strikes targeting warehouses of Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries have caused inventory losses for thousands of small businesses.

Russia has also stepped up its attacks on Ukraine, exposing a shortage of interceptors to protect Kyiv and other major cities from strikes targeting key infrastructure. Zelenskyy is seeking additional supplies of U.S.-made missiles amid acute international demand spurred by the war in the Middle East.

While Trump said earlier this month that Ukraine could produce Patriot interceptors, the only weapon that can reliably defend against Russian ballistic missiles, it will take time to implement.

“It’s not that we made a decision and filled our storage facilities with hundreds of these interceptors,” Zelenskyy told Sky News in an interview. “It doesn’t work that way.”

His meeting with Trump also comes ahead of an expected congressional vote this week on legislation that would authorize Trump to impose sanctions on buyers of Russian oil.

The Ukrainian president said on social media last week that he had a “good, important conversation on how to reinvigorate diplomacy and bring peace closer” with Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Still, there’s no sign so far of a resumption of U.S.-led peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine that have stalled since February, when the Trump administration focused on its war with Iran.

Ukrainian and U.S. officials have discussed a proposal to end airstrikes which will be presented to Russia as part of a new initiative to revive talks, Reuters reported last week.

—With assistance from Alberto Nardelli.

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