Zelensky at Downing Street as Britain Doubles Down
The Ukrainian president arrives in London this morning, with a £45m package of surface-to-air missiles announced and £10m of it accelerated for what the government calls Ukraine’s most urgent winter requirements. “Our rock-solid support to Ukraine is vital for keeping us safe here in the UK,” the prime minister said.
The timing is the point. Washington has eased sanctions to let Russian diesel reach world markets, the American president has called for Ukraine to find new leadership, and overnight Russian missiles hit a Kyiv power plant with what Mr Zelensky says was no advance warning from allies. The foreign secretary Ed Miliband called it a “very difficult few days” for relations with Washington. Against that, a British pledge reads as a deliberate counterweight. Two cautions on the numbers. The £1.6bn for more than 5,000 lightweight multirole missiles over four years is a standing commitment being restated, not money announced today; and the prime minister has asked ministers to draw up further sanctions, military aid and fiscal packages “in the coming weeks”, which is a commission rather than a package. What is genuinely new is the £45m and the acceleration of deliveries aimed specifically at Russia’s jet-powered drones, which fly faster and higher than the propeller-driven type and are harder to bring down. The chancellor is urging partners at the IMF meetings in Bangkok to match Britain’s ban on Russian liquefied natural gas.