Donald Trump and Keir Starmer spent part of their private talks on Ukraine. The British side attempted to talk the American president round on Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Trump has criticised more than once. Whatever arguments were made, they were made behind closed doors, and no full account has emerged. London has a lot riding on Washington staying committed to Kyiv, which is why the persuasion effort matters. Officials on both sides released only vague readouts of the meeting. That leaves diplomats and journalists sifting for clues about whether Trump's view of Zelensky shifted at all. The episode shows how much of the war's Western diplomacy now rests on one man's attitude toward the Ukrainian president.