The UK will provide a further GBP 100 million in air defence support to Ukraine, aimed at protecting cities and critical infrastructure from ongoing Russian attacks, according to the government.
The funding, announced by the Prime Minister at a Joint Expeditionary Force leaders’ meeting in Helsinki, brings total UK air defence commitments over the past two months to £600 million. The additional support is intended to be deployed rapidly to reinforce Ukraine’s ability to counter aerial threats.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “As Putin continues his abhorrent attacks across Ukraine, my message is simple – there will be no let up in the UK’s support.” He added that the package would help “protect millions of people in Ukraine from Russia’s barbaric strikes on cities and homes.”
Defence Secretary John Healey said the support would deliver “vital air defence to protect civilians, cities and critical infrastructure from Russia’s relentless attacks,” and linked the effort to wider cooperation between UK and Ukrainian industry. He also highlighted what he described as an “axis of aggression between Russia and Iran” as a factor shaping the security environment.
The new funding builds on a £500 million package announced in February, which included contributions to NATO’s Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List, more than 1,000 Lightweight Multirole Missiles, and support for industrial collaboration between the UK and Ukraine. Additional deliveries include 1,200 air defence missiles and 200,000 rounds of artillery ammunition through multinational initiatives.
Good news. But what about some sort of commitment to our own vulnerabilities? Sure the whole country can’t be covered but we can’t even defend a handful of critical sites!
And what we spending on our GBAD? we give, gift but never replace. Ukraine rightly needs the help but on the whole they have more and better GBAD than we do. Time to think about protecting the UK as well. Rather than just talking about ir and having a few projects.
UKR is the ultimate test environment so I understand trying new kit there for our benefit.
As you say, we could do with buying some kit for UKPLC protection as we have been a bit exposed by the latest shenanigans.
Up to that point it was just about credible to suspect that there might have been some undeclared GBAD facility and now everyone knows that there isn’t….
Questions for the MOD and HMG
1) when will the defence investment plan be published
2) what urgent action is being taken to rearm and prepare the UK for war considering the international security situation is deteriorating significantly
3) when will the conclusions and outcomes of the SDSR 2025 be delivered into service
Agree with other posts on here, we need much improved GBAD for the UK’s main critical infrastructure and defence industrial/ military sites. relying on a few typhoon interceptors flying on QRA will not deliver the interceptors readily available and urgently needed to ensure the UK is not taken out of any conflict on day one by 50-100 cruise missile or drone strikes hitting sensitive locations.
“when will the defence investment plan be published”
When enough sand is through the hour glass that funding it is the next parliament’s problem – that is the real answer.
GBAD could never provide defence against a surprise cruise missile defence. The best defence against Russian cruise missiles is towed array frigates operating in the Bear Gap and typhoons operating as far from the UK mainland as possible to intercept any Russian bombers. All of that is in place already today.
Ukraine has been attacked by hundreds of Russian cruise missiles in a single day before and at no point has it ever been close to being knocked out.
How about boosting homeland defence?