New UK Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis has announced Britain\u2019s biggest-ever package of drones for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The UK will provide 150,000 drones and 350 air defence missiles and radars to the war-torn nation by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
The equipment is funded by a \u00a3752 million ($994 million) tranche of the \u00a32.26 billion loan to Kyiv financed with the profits of seized Russian assets.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian-produced drones, lightweight multirole missiles and ground-based radar systems are aimed at helping Ukraine counter Russian strikes on civilian targets.<\/p>\n
Ukraine hit Moscow with a barrage of drones after ramping up strikes in recent months as it continues its fightback against Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n
The announcement was made by Jarvis at the meetings of NATO defence ministers and the Ukraine defence contact group (UDCG) in Brussels, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.<\/p>\n
Jarvis, who was appointed defence secretary last week after the resignation of John Healey amid a row over the still-unpublished defence investment plan, co-chaired the 50-strong UDCG with his German counterpart Boris Pistorius.<\/p>\n
Jarvis said: \u201cIt is a privilege to attend my first NATO defence ministers meeting and host the vital Ukraine defence contact group with Germany.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor 75 years, NATO has been the cornerstone of the UK\u2019s security. My priorities are to strengthen the alliance\u2019s deterrence and defence, and continue to support Ukraine as they defend their nation against Russia\u2019s brutal war of aggression.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis package of drones, air defence missiles and radars will help to protect innocent Ukrainian people from Putin\u2019s barrage of drones and missiles, and it is an honour to welcome President Zelensky to this important meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The drone package comes on top of the 120,000 drones the UK delivered to Ukraine by the end of March.<\/p>\n
Ukraine pounded targets around Moscow in one of its biggest drone attacks since the start of the war more than four years ago, Russian officials said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The air raid set a major oil refinery on fire and disrupted commercial flights at Moscow airports.<\/p>\n
It was in response to last week\u2019s Russian attack on Kyiv, Zelensky said, and part of his efforts to force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table as the war of attrition on the front line grinds on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New UK Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis has announced Britain\u2019s biggest-ever package of drones for Ukraine. The UK will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[599,3583,3586,1293,3584,616,3585,26],"class_list":["post-7000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-air-defence","tag-dan-jarvis","tag-john-healey","tag-munich-security-conference","tag-nato-defence-ministers","tag-president-volodymyr-zelensky","tag-uk-defence-secretary","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}