Ambassador: UK increases military support to Ukraine by GBP 1B this year
The United Kingdom is increasing its own defense budget and military supplies to Ukraine, calling on its European partners to do the same.
British Ambassador to Ukraine Martin Harris said this in an interview with Ukrinform.
“We know that the security of the UK begins here in Ukraine. So we understand that the defence of Ukraine is also the defence of Europe, it’s the defence of international law, it’s the defence of the main pillars of security on which the UK depends. So we are not only supporting Ukraine’s security. By doing so, we’re supporting our own security,” the diplomat said.
Answering the question about the readiness of the UK and the EU to speed up the supply of weapons to Ukraine, Harris said: “We are going to work incredibly quickly on this, in fact we’ve already increased military supplies to Ukraine. You remember that when President Zelensky visited London just recently, he signed an agreement to provide a further $3 billion of support to the military forces of Ukraine, as well as an agreement to provide 5,000 anti-aircraft missiles from the UK. In the past we’ve always provided to Ukraine at least GBP 3 billion in military support, every year, but this year we’re providing over GBP 4 billion because we are increasing the amount of resources that are available for military support.”
The diplomat added that a similar trend is observed among partners in Europe, mentioning Germany, which has agreed to increase its support for Ukraine by 3 billion euros.
The ambassador emphasized that the UK has agreed to increase its defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027, which he considers a very accelerated deadline.
“If all European partners in NATO were to increase their percentage of GDP spent on defence to 2.5 per cent, that would be an additional USD 120 billion of defence spending by NATO countries every year, in other words, the entire Russian defence budget,” the British Ambassador said.
As reported, on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a press conference following the Paris leaders' meeting on support for Ukraine and security in Europe that the number of partner countries that are ready to provide Ukraine with security guarantees and send their military contingent is increasing.