Sunak promises UK’s largest ever military support package to Ukraine
Rishi Sunak yesterday promised the UK’s largest ever military support package for Kyiv as he warned that Vladimir Putin would “not stop at the Polish border” if Russia won the war.
The prime minister will visit Poland today to discuss European security and the threat from Russia with the Polish leader Donald Tusk and the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, before travelling to Germany to meet Olaf Scholz.
The UK plans to give vital equipment to Kyiv including 400 vehicles, 1,600 weapons and 4m rounds of ammunition, as well as an additional £500m in military funding, taking the total to £3bn this financial year.
“Defending Ukraine against Russia’s brutal ambitions is vital for our security and for all of Europe,” Sunak said. “I am in Warsaw today to deepen ties with our Polish
nd partners and commit critical new military support for Ukraine’s defence. Ukraine’s armed forces continue to fight bravely, but they need our support – and they need it now. Today’s package will help ensure Ukraine has what they need to take the fight to Russia. The United Kingdom will always play its part at the forefront of European security, defending our national interest and standing by our Nato allies.”
The UK has pledged almost £12bn in support to Ukraine since February 2022, of which £7.1bn is for military assistance and the rest humanitarian and economic support.
On Saturday, the US House of Representatives, after months of stalling, finally approved a $61bn (£49bn) package of new military aid for Ukraine, after a fierce battle within the Republican party.
The UK’s £500m additional funding, which officials said would come from Treasury reserves, will be used to deliver ammunition, air defence, UK-built drones and engineering support to the Ukrainian frontline.
The Ministry of Defence will also send what was described as the largest ever single package of equipment from the UK. It is unclear how much this will cost, but it will come from existing Ministry of Defence budgets.
The package includes 60 boats with offshore raiding craft and dive boats; more than 1,600 strike and air defence missiles; more than 400 vehicles, including 162 armoured vehicles; and nearly 4m rounds of small-arms ammunition.
The defence secretary, Grant Shapps, said: “This record package of military aid will give President Zelenskiy and his brave nation more of the kit they need to kick Putin out and restore peace and stability in Europe. We will never let the world forget the existential battle Ukraine is fighting, and with our enduring support, they will win.”
At his first in-person meeting with Tusk, the new Polish prime minister, Sunak will also seek to deepen ties between UK and Poland, building on existing defence and security cooperation. He will offer to deploy an RAF Typhoon squadron to carry out Nato air policing over Poland next year.
There are about 400 British troops based in Poland full-time, while about 8,000 have taken part in the Nato exercise Steadfast Defender, the alliance’s largest since the cold war.
Meanwhile, the foreign secretary, David Cameron, acknowledged that Russia is using Central Asia to sidestep sanctions and said Britain wants to work with countries in the region to end the circumvention.
Cameron warned that items that could be used to build Putin’s war machine should not be exported from the UK only to be sent on to Moscow.
There have been concerns about a rise in sales of drones and heavy machinery from Britain to countries such as Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Speaking on a visit to the AtaBeyit memorial to victims of Soviet repression near Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Cameron suggested Britain can talk to Central Asian countries about the so-called “common high-priority list” of western items critical to Russian weapons systems.
He told ITV: “Of course we aren’t against trade between Kyrgyzstan and Russia – it is natural – [but] it shouldn’t be that these items are exported here and then simply reexported, simply building Russia’s war machine, without there being much advantage to Kyrgyzstan – so [we are] working with the government to try to put a stop to that.”
Cameron is travelling across Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia in a diplomatic effort to boost trade, security and environmental ties with the UK.
EU ministers have been warned against “relaxing” support for Ukraine but stopped short of new pledges to supply the air defence systems Kyiv is urgently seeking to defend itself against relentless Russian bombardment.
The Ukrainian government has said it is running out of US-made Patriot air defence missiles as Russia intensifies attacks on infrastructure and cities.
Germany, which earlier this month promised to deliver a third Patriot battery to Kyiv, has been leading efforts to bolster air defences. “Every additional air defence system saves lives in Ukraine,” said Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock. “We urgently appeal to everyone to review their stocks once again.”
At a meeting of the EU’s foreign and defence ministers yesterday, the EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, said: “We have been asking all member states to do whatever they can in order to increase the air defence capacity of Ukraine.”
At that meeting, Kyiv’s most vocal allies urged their counterparts not to be complacent about Ukraine’s defence after US lawmakers approved a $61bn (£49bn) aid package.
Brnaže
Baiba , Latvia’s new foreign minister, said: “As Europeans we have to step up; we can’t relax, even though the US has passed the aid package.”
Her Lithuanian counterpart, Gabrielius Landsbergis, struck a similar note in describing the longdelayed approval by the US House of Representatives of the package on Saturday. “We dodged a historic bullet, but unfortunately many more bullets are on the way.”
The US Senate is expected to come out of recess today to hold its first vote on the package – similar to one it had already voted for in February – with the president, Joe Biden, promising to sign it into law swiftly after it passes Congress.
After the recent promise of the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to deliver a third system to Ukraine, EU member states are under growing pressure to transfer similar defence systems to the battlefields rather than leaving them in storage.
“Patriots can only be called air defence systems if they work and save lives rather than standing immobile somewhere in storage bases,” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wrote on Sunday.
Patriot systems, also used by Israel, have mobile radars and missile launch stations, which enable them to intercept aircraft, missiles and other airborne threats from great distances. Last week, Zelenskiy urged western nations to donate at least seven more Patriot or similar systems to “save many lives and really change the situation”. Ukrainian officials favour Patriots, as they are said to be the only ones capable of downing Russia’s hypersonic missiles.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Friday that Nato allies had Patriot systems available to provide to Ukraine, but did not go into details, saying the information was classified. “We are working with those allies to ensure that they make the right decisions to provide new Patriot batteries,” he added.
Germany, Poland, Sweden, Spain and Greece are among the EU countries that possess the Patriot systems. But EU nations appear hesitant to give up their supplies.
The Dutch foreign minister, Hanke Bruins Slot, said the Netherlands was contributing to initiatives to bolster Ukraine’s air defences and ammunition stocks. Asked about transferring Dutch Patriot systems, she said: “We are looking again if we can deplete our store of what we still have, that will be difficult.”
Facing the same question, Sweden’s defence minister, Pål Jonson, said: “I don’t exclude that possibility but right now we are focused on financial contributions.” He also noted Sweden had sent other missile defence systems, and could send more Swedish-made RBS 70 shortrange air defence systems, “because that could alleviate some of the pressure on the Patriot systems”.
Asked if Greece was planning to send S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, the government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis told Reuters: “There won’t be any move that would even minimally endanger the country’s deterrent capability or air defence.”
EU foreign ministers also agreed further sanctions against Iran, targeting drones that could be transferred to Russia. The EU has already sanctioned scores of Iranian officials and organisations for their role in supplying Russia with military hardware to attack Ukraine, as well as for Iran’s repression of domestic human rights protesters.
Some EU member states are wary of heavy diplomatic punishment, fearing the consequences for attempts to revive the frozen nuclear agreement, the JCPoA. More hawkish members are seeking to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation.
“How many fronts does Iran need to open for us to get serious about sanctioning them?” said Landsbergis, who favours the designation. “I hope that … we reach the limit where we actually can impose serious sanctions that would actually restrict their military industry from fighting in Ukraine and for fighting against Israel.”