British Prime Minister Andy Burnham hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Portsmouth in a public and explicit show of support for the Ukrainian leader and his nation.
Prime Minister Burnham used the visit to assert that he would continue his predecessor’s strong support for Ukraine and told the Ukrainian president that he had “his full personal support”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was the first foreign leader to visit and meet Britain’s new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, since he took office. The two leaders held their first meeting aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth at Portsmouth Naval Base.
During the visit, the leaders met more than 200 Ukrainian military personnel and sailors who had spent three weeks in Britain participating in Exercise Sea Breeze, a multinational maritime-security and mine-countermeasures exercise. They also boarded the Ukrainian minehunter Cherkasy, one of five Ukrainian mine-countermeasures vessels currently based in Portsmouth.
Prime Minister Burnham pledged that Britain would maintain all its previous commitments to Ukraine and announced that the UK would share the intellectual property for its Stone Cloak technology with Kyiv. Stone Cloak is a tablet-sized electronic jammer designed to prevent Russian air-defence systems from tracking and targeting Ukrainian drones. The transfer will allow Ukraine to mass-produce the technology domestically.
Britain has committed to providing Ukraine with £3 billion in support every year for as long as necessary. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, total British support for Ukraine has reached £25 billion, including £16 billion in military assistance and £5.6 billion in non-military support.
Newsroom
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