Defence of Ukraine’s tribute to the UK & it’s outgoing Defence Minister Ben Wallace 💙💛🇺🇦

9 comments

1. Source; https://x.com/defenceu/status/1697550047825608844?s=46&t=-ESy3CkbdQEH6ivAj7OapA

   Thank you, dear @BWallaceMP!
   Together, we will win.

2. The UK and a few others have been supporting Ukraine since 2014. One of the reasons that Ukraine did not fall in the first few weeks.

   They waited to see if Ukrainians would surrender or fight and found they were better fighters than expected, then the flood of weapons started.

   What is needed now is pressure on others to supply long range weapons asap and as much in the way of air defences as they can.

   F16’s hopefully arriving next year will go a long way to ensuring that the Ukraine military will have a decisive win not just push Russia over their borders but hurt their ability to consider invading again for many decades, or ever when Ukraine joins NATO.

3. Ben Wallace was a gem. He had no ambitions to the top job and no agenda other than to push for defence and military improvement. As such he wasn’t scared of getting into it with the purse holders over funding and support of Ukraine.

   I hope Grant Shapps will continue to stand by Ukraine’s cause with more than just words.

   Whatever people thought of Boris and/or Ben, they had Ukraine in their hearts.

4. Mister Wallace is a legend, thank you!

5. One of the only reasonable Tories

6. As time goes on, it becomes easier to lose sight of what international support for Ukraine looked like early on, and those who were pivotal in building the coalition of support that it is today. Ben Wallace is/was one of those pivotal figures, who genuinely seemed to have Ukraine’s best interests at heart, even if misunderstood at times.

7. Unfortunately he’s been replaced by Grant “Michael Green” Shapps.

8. A top chap!

9. I’m sorry Ukraine that the UK has now inflicted Grant Shapps on you as our Defence Secretary.

   This has been done for domestic party political reasons to shore up the Conservative government in its dying days of power before our general election next year.

   Shapps has held no major international ministries, has been involved with promoting a friend’s shoddy business which was a pyramid scheme under a pseudonym and has now held five positions in four years, such is the state of the government in perma-chaos.

   I hope he will be good for Ukraine, however, this feels very much like a domestic appointment rather than putting the right person in place during what is essentially a war footing.