UK continues to lead response to invasion

The UK is continuing to lead the international response to the invasion of Ukraine – including through continued military, financial and physical aid.

The UK is the largest European bilateral donor providing over £400million in aid to the Ukrainian people. On top of this, we’ve also pledged £1.3billion in military support. At the start of this month, our Prime Minister addressed the Ukrainian Parliament via video link, setting out a £300million package of defensive military aid, including specialised armoured vehicles and drones.

More recently Foreign Secretary Liz Truss attended a meeting of the G7 to ensure we maintain our strong and unified approach; encouraging our allies to join us in going further and faster to support the Ukrainian resistance with Nato-standard equipment, whilst maintaining tough sanctions on key Russian businesses and individuals.

This approach is working and the international response to Russia’s actions has had the opposite effect of what Putin wanted. NATO and its allies are more united and resolute than ever and membership looks set to increase.

Last week, Boris Johnson signed historic declarations with both Sweden and Finland to reinforce their security and fortify northern Europe’s defences. The security declarations will see a step-change in defence and security cooperation, including the sharing of new intelligence and joint military operations, as well as, mutual security assurances with the UK to tackle traditional, hybrid and cyber threats.

Since then both nations have taken the decision to formally begin their bids to join NATO. This is despite Russian threats of ‘farreaching consequences’.

This strength of unity is not just felt at a government level. The Eurovision Song Contest saw an outpouring of support for Ukraine from across the continent and beyond, so much so that it won the competition overall, which was a lovely moment to watch. Plus the UK came in a strong second, which was remarkable, especially receiving top points from some of our European friends, rather different from past performances. So big congratulations to Sam Ryder.