Starmer’s Farewell in Kyiv: £255m for Fighter Jets
On his final overseas trip as Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer met President Zelensky in Kyiv and announced £255m, jointly with Sweden, to help deliver a squadron of 16 advanced Gripen fighter jets to strengthen Ukraine’s air defences. He pledged that Britain’s support “will endure” and that the handover to Andy Burnham “doesn’t change that dynamic at all”. Arriving by train hours after a Russian strike killed two people in the city, he was awarded Ukraine’s Order of Freedom on what was his fourth visit as Prime Minister.
A farewell trip to Kyiv is a deliberate choice of legacy: whatever the domestic failures that brought him down, Starmer wanted his final act as Prime Minister to be a statement of steadfastness towards Ukraine, the cause on which his record drew the most cross-party praise. The £255m for Gripen jets, shared with Sweden, is a concrete parting gift, though the aircraft are not due until the end of the decade, a reminder that even urgent support runs on long timelines. The visit also serves a national purpose, signalling continuity to Kyiv and to Moscow at the very moment Britain changes leader, an assurance meant to outlast the man. For Burnham, inheriting that commitment is among the least controversial parts of the job, but also one of the most open-ended and expensive. Watch how Burnham frames his own approach to the war, whether the jet deal holds to its timeline, and what more the new European missile-defence coalition asks of Britain.