U.K. to pledge $3B in military aid
U.S., EU assistance stalled by infighting
KYIV, Ukraine — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain visited Kyiv on Friday to announce he would send more than $3 billion in military assistance to Ukraine in the next financial year, his country’s largest annual commitment since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
In addition to the new aid package, Sunak and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine signed a bilateral security agreement for the next 10 years.
The pact offers reassurance amid concerns about a potential shortfall in Western support for Ukraine while badly needed military and financial aid packages remain blocked in the United States and the European Union because of political infighting.
“For two years, Ukraine has fought with great courage to repel a brutal Russian invasion. They are still fighting, unfaltering in their determination to defend their country,” Sunak said in a statement.
“I am here today with one message: The U.K. will also not falter. We will stand with Ukraine, in their darkest hours and in the better times to come.”
The British aid for the coming year represents an increase of about $255 million compared with the country’s annual commitment for the past two years. Much of the increase will go toward the production and procurement of thousands of military drones that are crucial for Ukraine.
Britain will also deliver longrange missiles, air defenses and artillery ammunition.
The new support from Britain will cement London’s reputation as one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters since Russia invaded nearly two years ago. It will also help to allay Ukrainians’ fears that Western support is wavering in the face of a protracted war that has now largely stalled on land.
Sunak’s visit came hours after the British and U.S. militaries bombed more than a dozen targets in Yemen controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi militia. The strikes could ignite a wider conflict in the Middle East over Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and further distract the world’s attention from the fighting in Ukraine.
In an attempt to counter this turn of events, Zelenskyy has toured Western capitals in recent months to rally continued support for his country.
On Wednesday and Thursday, he visited three Baltic States, where he urged his allies to help hold the line as Russian forces are on the offensive along much of the front and as Moscow has launched a winter air campaign that is wearing down Ukraine’s air defenses.
Zelenskyy said that he was “grateful” for the Patriot missile systems that Ukraine’s allies have already delivered and that have helped his country weather the enormous Russian air assaults.
But he said Ukraine urgently needed to further reinforce its defenses if it were to withstand more air attacks.
“If Ukraine were given seven such systems today, people in Kharkiv, Kherson, and Odesa would not be dying,” Zelenskyy said during a news conference in Riga, Latvia’s capital, on Thursday. Without Patriots, he added, “it is impossible to survive.”
The three Baltic countries that Zelenskyy visited — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — are some of Ukraine’s biggest backers in the war, united in their opposition to Russia by their legacy as former Soviet states.
Each of them is providing Ukraine with more than 1% of their respective gross domestic products in aid, which is among the highest from allied countries, according to a ranking by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
Still, that aid is a fraction of what larger countries, such as the United States, Britain and Germany, can offer Ukraine. Zelenskyy’s trip was intended to use the Baltic States’ vocal support of Ukraine to spur other, more reluctant allies to give more to Ukraine as the war drags on, said Pavlo Klimkin, a Ukrainian former foreign minister.