London has touted its “100-year alliance” with Kiev whereas ignoring Washington
Britain has educated tens of hundreds of Ukrainian troopers since 2014 and led the Western effort to help Kiev, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps mentioned on Monday.
Shapps spoke at Lancaster Home in London in regards to the UK’s place in a “extra harmful world.” He painted Britain as a number one international army and industrial energy, with out as soon as mentioning the US.
Simply final week, Shapps mentioned, the UK was “in a position to each take motion to defend ourselves towards the Houthis and uplift our help to Ukraine to new document ranges.” This was a reference to the primarily US air and missile strikes on the Yemeni group, through which 4 RAF jets took half.
“For Ukraine, this can be a yr when the destiny of their nation could also be determined,” Shapps mentioned, arguing that “the West should not allow them to down.”
With the package deal British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak introduced on Friday, Britain’s army support to Ukraine has exceeded £7 billion ($8.9 billion), “with much more gifted instantly from the UK’s gear stock,” in accordance with the protection minister.
“This continues the UK’s proud document as a number one donor – at all times being the primary to get Ukraine precisely what they want. The UK was the primary to supply Ukraine with weapons coaching, the primary to supply NLAW anti-tank missiles, the primary to provide fashionable tanks, the primary to ship lengthy vary missiles. Now we are going to change into the most important supplier of drones too,” Shapps mentioned.
He described the safety cooperation settlement Sunak signed with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky as “the beginning of a 100-year alliance” with Kiev, which formalizes British help “in the whole lot from intelligence sharing and cyber safety to medical and army coaching.”
Shapps revealed that the UK has educated over 60,000 Ukrainian troopers since Russia “launched its invasion” in 2014. This was presumably a reference to the Crimean referendum to rejoin Russia, which adopted the US-backed coup in Kiev in February that yr.
Notably absent from the British protection minister’s speech was any point out of the US in anyway, besides in imprecise phrases referring to Britain’s “worldwide partnerships.”
Each UK and US generals helped design Kiev’s 2023 counteroffensive, however the Ukrainian excessive command scrapped the plan simply 4 days into the operation as a result of “nothing went as deliberate,” the Washington Put up revealed in December.
London additionally had a hand in scuttling the peace talks between Kiev and Moscow in April 2022, in accordance with each Ukrainian media and officers. Then PM Boris Johnson has not denied urging Kiev to reject any peace deal, however mentioned he by no means “ordered” anybody to do something.
You possibly can share this story on social media:
Supply hyperlink
