Britain sends more weapons to Kyiv as PM searches for other ways to help

Anti-tank missiles among ‘lethal aid’ sent to Ukraine, but no circumstances in which British troops would accompany assistance

‘Everyone is eyes-wideopen to the fact that it is hard work to do, due to the very imminent threat of it all going noisy’

‘It’s not appropriate to send British soldiers… we can support the Ukrainians but we are not going to fight it for them’

BRITAIN will send more weapons to Ukraine, Boris Johnson has confirmed, in a last effort before the situation gets “too noisy”.

The Prime Minister committed to sending lethal defensive weapons, as well as other aid, to Ukraine in response to Russia’s “increasingly threatening behaviour”. Yesterday, he told the Commons:

“This will include lethal aid in the form of defensive weapons, and non-lethal aid.”

It is understood that at an intelligence meeting on Tuesday, Mr Johnson asked those present to look at what more could be done to help Ukraine.

“The PM has asked us to look at how we could do more but everyone is eyeswide-open to the fact that is hard work to do, due to the very imminent threat of it all going noisy. It’s a week or two to make it happen,” one source said.

While Downing Street would not provide further details on the equipment being provided for “operational security reasons”, it is understood that the lethal aid will include Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapons (NLAW), the same weapons that Britain supplied to Ukraine last month.

Helmets and body armour will also be sent to Ukraine.

It is not known how many NLAWS will be sent, however, sources added that British troops would not be accompanying any weapons that are sent over.

“It’s hard at this late stage to get these in and have British troops distribute and [be] involved in the delivery of weapons once hostilities have broken out,” the source said. Yesterday, Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, said he was keeping the possibility of sending further weapons to Ukraine “under constant review”, adding: “We’re in a pretty good position to deliver any type of aid pretty quickly to Ukraine, no matter what that aid is.”

Mr Wallace also suggested that Russian forces invading Ukraine could be followed by a mobile crematorium to help disguise the number of casualties inflicted during the potential war.

He said the world should “expect to see some of the things they’ve done previously”, which have included the deployment of “mobile crematoriums to follow troops around the battlefield, which in anyone’s book is chilling”.

He added: “If I was a soldier, and knew that my generals had so little faith in me that they followed me around the battlefield in a mobile crematorium, or I was the mother or a father of a son, potentially deployed to a combat zone, and my government thought the way to cover up loss was a mobile crematorium – I’d be deeply, deeply worried.”

Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the Commons defence select committee, said: “Russia has illegally granted itself authorisation to invade another sovereign state and that territory is calling for military assistance.

“Our support should be co-ordinated with allies and be unconditional.

“This might include intelligence sharing, ISTAR, satellite communica

tions, medium and heavy weapon sys- tems and drones. If we truly wanted to make [Vladimir] Putin blink we would also consider introducing a partial or total no-fly zone.”

Lord Dannatt, the former head of the Army, suggested anti-tank weapons and clothing and equipment were the appropriate defensive means to arm the Ukrainians. “All along we’ve said it’s not appropriate to send British soldiers to fight in Ukraine. However, we support its independence and its right to defend the integrity of its territory,” he said.

“It’s fair that we continue to send them weapons and equipment as a practical measure of our support.”

However, Lord Dannatt stressed that there were “no circumstances” in which the UK would send troops into Ukraine. “Against 150,000-plus Russian combat troops, the most we could send would be 3,000 to 5,000 and it would be futile, a waste of British lives and the wrong thing to do,” he said.

“We can support the Ukrainians but we are not going to fight it for them.”

Bob Seely, a Tory MP who writes on Russia, said the most important thing Ukrainians require is air domination. “Without a way of combating air power, you’re in trouble,” he warned.

“They need anti-aircraft for jets and helicopters. We do have stuff we should have sold them years ago, but we didn’t.

“It’s great we are doing this now but the sad reality is, after Crimea, the coalition government turned down the request to arm Ukraine, because they didn’t want to offend Russia.”

Meanwhile, Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš, the Latvian prime minister, said Russian troops have moved into the eastern region of Ukraine that Russia has now recognised as “independent”.

“By any definition that’s a crossing of a sovereign territory into a neighbouring country,” he said.

The UK warned this week that it was ready to launch cyber attacks on Russia if Moscow targeted Britain’s computer networks after an invasion of Ukraine.

“I’m a soldier – I was always taught the best part of defence is offence,” Mr Wallace told the Commons on Monday, pointing to the “offensive cyber capability” Britain is already developing.