Burnham hosts Zelensky on British aircraft carrier

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the UK as his first international visitor since taking office, the Prime Minister’s Office stated.

The two leaders met at Portsmouth Naval Base, where, according to Zelensky, they held their first meeting aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. The visit came a week after Burnham took office, having spoken to Zelensky in one of his first calls as Prime Minister and invited him to visit at the earliest opportunity. Downing Street said Burnham used the visit to underline the UK’s support for Ukraine through the war and beyond.

Burnham was quoted as saying: “Britain stands with Ukraine, shoulder to shoulder, and our support remains unwavering. Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve, and we will not back down until we achieve long lasting and just peace for Ukraine. Stone Cloak is the best of homegrown British innovation and proven on the frontline, and it will be vital to protecting our security in both our countries.”

The centrepiece of the visit was the announcement that the UK will share the intellectual property behind a British capability known as Stone Cloak. According to the government, the electronic jammers are the size of a tablet computer and hinder Russian air defence systems from tracking and targeting the drones they are fitted to. By sharing the intellectual property, the government said, Ukraine can now mass-produce Stone Cloak itself, strengthening front-line defences.

The government said thousands of the jammers have already been gifted to Ukraine by the Ministry of Defence, helping its armed forces maintain drone operations. It framed the device as an example of the rapid innovation being developed between the two countries under the 100 Year Partnership signed earlier in the year.

According to the government, Stone Cloak is expected to be built into the next generation of UK deep-strike capabilities following its roll-out in Ukraine. That includes Project Brakestop, the government’s initiative to develop a new low-cost cruise missile. The arrangement means a capability first fielded on Ukrainian drones is intended to feed back into British weapons development, an unusually direct example of battlefield lessons shaping domestic procurement.

Fitting electronic warfare protection to strike drones addresses one of the central problems of the war, in which both sides rely heavily on uncrewed aircraft but lose large numbers to jamming and air defences. A device that degrades an air defence system’s ability to track a drone extends the reach and survivability of those aircraft, and doing so at low cost and in a form that can be produced at scale is the stated aim behind sharing the design with Ukrainian industry.

Zelensky set out his own account of the meeting in a post on X, reposted by the Ministry of Defence. He wrote that the two leaders discussed Ukraine’s need for sufficient capabilities to protect lives in the air and at sea, along with the development of joint defence production. “I am grateful to the United Kingdom for today’s decision to provide Ukraine with electronic warfare technologies to protect Ukrainian drones,” he wrote, adding that he had invited Burnham to visit Ukraine.

During the visit, the leaders also met more than 200 Ukrainian military personnel and sailors who have spent the past three weeks in the UK taking part in Exercise Sea Breeze, a maritime security and counter-mine exercise preparing for future missions in the Black Sea.

The government said the exercise builds on the wider support the UK provides Ukraine, including £3 billion a year for as long as it takes. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, it said, the UK’s total support for Ukraine has reached £25 billion, including £16 billion in military assistance and £5.6 billion in non-military support.