British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised to send hundreds of attack drones and other military equipment to Ukraine after face-to-face talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday.
Ukraine’s president arrived in Britain after visiting other European capitals over the weekend as he sought to build support ahead of a anticipated counter-offensive by the country’s army to retake territory occupied by Russian forces.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters the Kremlin had an “extremely negative” view of Britain supplying weapons capable of hitting Russian targets well behind the front line.
Sunak said it was “very interesting” to hear from the Kremlin, but said the UK was “not leaving” and Britain was “here for the long haul”.
In a tweet ahead of the meeting, Zelenskyy said: “The UK is a leader when it comes to expanding our capabilities on the ground and in the air. This cooperation will continue today.
After the talks, he was asked if Ukraine awaited more armament before launching its counter-offensive. “We really need more time,” he said. “Not too much. We will be ready in a while.
Sunak has confirmed the supply of hundreds of air defense missiles and other unmanned aerial systems, including hundreds of unspecified attack drones with a range of over 200 km – a weapon system that does not is not known to be used by the British Army.
The promise of new weapons for defensive and offensive purposes came after the UK announced last week that it had provided Storm Shadow ranged weapons to Ukraine, the first long-range cruise missile from the kyiv arsenal.
Downing Street said the additional weapons would be supplied over the “coming months”. Sunak hosted the Ukrainian leader at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s campaign retreat just outside London.
Zelenskyy renewed his plea for Western-built fighter jets and said he wanted to create a “jet coalition” between allied nations because “we can’t control the skies”.
The UK has previously said it will provide pilot training, but Downing Street said on Monday it would not send fighter jets to Ukraine. kyiv prefers the US-built F-16 jet, which is widely operated by NATO and other air forces, but not by the UK. Washington has so far ruled out supplying the plane.
“This is a crucial moment in Ukraine’s resistance to a terrible war of aggression that it neither chose nor provoked,” Sunak said. “We must not let them down. The front lines of Putin’s war of aggression may be in Ukraine, but the fault lines extend across the globe.
The UK provided £2.3billion in military support to Ukraine last year and was the first country to offer to supply main battle tanks. The UK said last month it had completed delivery of a “squadron” of Challenger 2s, estimated at at least 14 tanks, along with other weapons including armored vehicles and self-propelled guns.
The UK has also trained 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers in Britain since the large-scale invasion of Russia last year and previously helped train the country’s armed forces in Ukraine, alongside other members of NATO, after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.
Before arriving in the UK, Zelensky had traveled to Rome, Berlin and Paris over the weekend to meet with Italian, German and French leaders and had received other pledges of military aid.
Ukraine’s military has spent months planning a counter-offensive to repel Russian forces from the eastern and southern regions that make up nearly a fifth of the country.
Fighting has intensified around the shelled eastern town of Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces have launched counterattacks on the flanks of the town which Russian forces mostly control but struggle to fully capture for nine months.
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