LONDON (Reuters) – Britain said on Monday it would provide 300 million pounds ($375 million) more in military aid to Ukraine, including electronic warfare equipment and a counter-battery radar system, on top of around 200 million pounds of assistance so far.
Britain has sent Ukraine more than 5,000 anti-tank missiles and five air defence systems as well as other munitions and explosives since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, which has destroyed cities and left thousands of people dead or injured.
The United States has provided $3 billion of military aid to Ukraine so far, and last week President Joe Biden asked the U.S. Congress to approve more than $20 billion in military support.
Russia last week said NATO countries were in effect engaging in a proxy war by providing arms to Ukraine, where it says it is conducting a “special operation” to disarm the country and rid it of anti-Russian nationalism fomented by the West.
Ukraine and the West say Russia launched an unprovoked war of aggression to seize territory, which threatens to spiral into a much wider conflict.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office said that as well as the other equipment, Britain would offer night vision devices, tools to jam satellite navigation, heavy-lift drones to resupply Ukrainian troops and armoured cars for civilian officials.
Johnson intends to address Ukraine’s parliament on Tuesday morning via videolink.
“Your children and grandchildren will say that Ukrainians taught the world that the brute force of an aggressor counts for nothing against the moral force of a people determined to be free,” Johnson plans to say, according a speech extract provided by his office.
While Britain has provided significant military aid, it has so far accepted relatively few of the more than 5 million Ukrainians who have fled their country. As of last week, Britain’s government said it had issued 86,100 visas to Ukrainians, of whom 27,100 had reached Britain.
($1 = 0.7987 pounds)
(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
