The UK has reached a major milestone in its military support for Ukraine, having now delivered over 500,000 rounds of artillery ammunition worth more than £1 billion to the country.
The announcement came as Defence Secretary John Healey convened the 26th Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Brussels, marking the first time a European nation has chaired the summit.
The UK’s contribution forms part of a new £150 million military aid package, which also includes drones, modernised tanks, armoured vehicles, and air defence systems.
Addressing the summit, Defence Secretary Healey stated:
“2025 is the critical year for the war in Ukraine. Ukrainians continue to fight with huge courage – military and civilians alike, and their bravery – fused with our support – has proved a lethal combination.”
He emphasised Europe’s growing role in the conflict:
“Speaking as a European Defence Minister, we know our responsibilities. We are doing more of the heavy lifting and sharing more of the burden. While Russia is weakened, it remains undeniably dangerous. We must step up further – and secure peace through strength – together.”
Firepower Package – What’s Included?
The £150 million package includes:
Thousands of drones, with the UK on track to deliver over 10,000 by next month.
More than 50 armoured and protective vehicles, including modernised T-72 tanks, arriving in Ukraine by spring.
Air defence equipment to support over 100 Ukrainian air defence teams, with a 90% success rate against Russian kamikaze drones.
15 Gravehawk long-range precision strike systems, provided jointly by the UK and Denmark.
To keep Ukraine’s military equipment operational, the UK has launched £60 million worth of maintenance contracts, ensuring rapid repairs to frontline assets.
As part of this effort:
UK defence firm Babcock has secured a multi-million-pound contract to train Ukrainian personnel in maintaining Challenger 2 tanks, self-propelled artillery, and combat reconnaissance vehicles inside Ukraine.
A £14 million contract has been awarded to BAE Systems, funded by Sweden, to repair Swedish-gifted Archer artillery systems in Ukraine, in collaboration with Lancashire-based AMS.
The UK’s overall military aid to Ukraine now stands at £4.5 billion, its highest level yet, reinforcing the 100 Year Partnership between the two nations.
Ahead of the NATO Defence Ministerial meeting, Defence Secretary Healey urged allies to step up support and provide Ukraine with the firepower needed to defeat Russian aggression.
Hope many of these are new production, or that stock is being replaced?
I am hoping Healy leads a crack regiment of Labour MP’s and supporters to the front to take on them there Ruskies face to face!!!!!
That will do for Ivan for sure as they will die laughing……..
Dying from laughter is probably the only thing Russians aren’t dying from, in Ukraine. Meanwhile, joke is on them and you. Third best army, in their own country, in a war they started that they won’t even call a war. But yeh… Healey, Labour, etc… yak yak yak.
Any idea how many artillery rounds a year we’re now producing?
I know HMG said they wanted to increase our arty production eightfold; does anyone know how many rounds we were producing each year as the baseline for that?
The number of rounds we can produce is a state secret for obvious reasons. However when they made the announcement last year in January we had sent 300,000 rounds and now one year and three weeks later it’s 500,000.
So it’s likely we are making around 200,000 rounds a year. Just to put it in to comparisons the entire 155mm artillery shell expenditure for the invasion of Iraq by all coalition forces was 60,000 shells.
This is what you get stupid figure from retired generals saying we can only fight for two weeks before running out of ammo. It’s because we have never sat in a filed lobbing artillery at an enemy since 1916 so we don’t have millions of shells in storage.
Not nessarily, the MOD might also have brought rounds from other countries. There are plenty of cooperative deals going on wiht multiple nations banding together to support them.
However 200k a year support isn’t bad, although that still only works out at 365 a day, which is no where near what Ukraine needs, when compared to russia using around 10k a day.
548 even
They’re going to need a damn sight more now after the Orange Shitgibbon’s basically handing 20% of Ukraine to Putin, gift-wrapped on a silver platter.
He’s worse than Chamberlain; at least Chamberlain never sucked Hitler’s c*ck like Trump’s doing to Putin!
The artillery expenditures in WW2 were of a similar scale to WW1…and Korean expenditures were colossal as well….
8th Army fired close to 2 million shells in the 14 days of El Alamein alone….
So Trump is going to abandon Ukraine so USA can concentrate on Chinese threat, which is real, active and imminent.
Meanwhile USA calls for European NATO partners to increase defence spending to 5%.
We are currently, with a huge amount of smoke and mirrors (military pensions, strategic nuclear deterrent renewal, support for Ukraine etc etc) at 2.3%.
Also no US military support for a peacekeeping for. Fair enough. The 500 million European citizens should be able to manage a defensive line that can easily hold back the 120 million people of Russia.
SDSR decisions just became very spicy.
They will have to increase manpower in the army by at least 10-20K.
They will have to upgrade all C2s toC3 standard
The MOD will have to purchase more Poseidon MPA. Wedgetails AWACS and F35Bs+ typhoons. Not doing so would be really dumb.
The navy will have to get a few more type 26s and a second batch of 5 type 31s. If militarily EU NATO has to be able to face down Russia nothing less will do.
Our EU friends and allies will have to do the same.
I don’t think 5% is viable. But even 5% would be a hell of a lot cheaper than a hot war being fought in Europe against Russia.3% is going to have to be reached and quickly moving towards 4%.
Classic Trump strategy demand, tell people he’s disappointed and the reality is they will come back with an improved offer.
Not sure what we need to arm up to face off against, if Trump is abandoning Ukraine and European NATO then we will all be moving to a neutral position on China. Russia is a joke. ENATO can easily handle Russia even with current budgets. Just the JEF can handle Russia.
China hasn’t actually threatened to annex anyone as Taiwan is recognised as a part of China, meanwhile the Donald has threatened to directly annex four countries now by force if necessary tow of them NATO allies. Fortunately Elon is on his way to the DoD after he is finished shutting down the Department of Education. Let’s see what DOGE does at the Pentagon but it’s bound to reduce the Donald’s ability to go on his expansionist/genocidal quest to make America great again.
I’ve not seen a single article that states US is abandoning NATO. Infact todays announcement reconfirmed USs commitment to NATO. But the US has just told us what we already know and to invest in defence and our defence industry.
Does the President of the USA threatening military action against two other NATO members count?
I’m pretty sure if Vlad threatened to annex two NATO members territory on TV it would be grounds for at-least article 4.
Where has the US said it will invade? I don’t like Trump but we need to deal with facts, Trump would like Canada to join the US and thinks Greenland would ve better off as part of the US and wants to buy it. When question by the press on using force he didn’t say no or tes which is typical trump leading some to conclude he’s going to invade. That’s a bit of a leap tbh
But it doesn’t actually effect NATO membership if yhere disputes getween NATO members Turkey and Greece are at odds Turkey has occupied part of Greece but remains in NATO.
He said he will no rule out military action against Greenland and Panama and he has now reiterated that statement against Canada. He said it on several occasions now all viewable via major news outlets on YouTube.
He’s threatening to invade NATO alies(Canada & Denmark/Greenland), leave European NATO in the lurch, sell out UKR, slapping huge tarrifs on allies trade, seeking to remove the Palestinians from their own territory. The guy’s an insane crook, a wrecker, carpet bagger, a million miles away from being qualified to be POTUS. The free, democratic world is under threat from the one who’s supposed to champion & guard it. But if you don’t like the result of an election, apparantly you can get away with inspiring an insurrection.
Don’t get me wrong, Biden was a shower, but Trump could make the USA into just another authoratarian state. His moves on bith the middle east & UKR could end up destroying American credability worldwide.
I agree with everything you wrote except the comment about the Palestinians. That is the only thing he has done that makes sense although the land should belong to Israel and there should be no right of return.
Agreed, he’s just going to push America into isolation with a lot of these policies I’d have thought.
Not even sure he can get away with the Palestine thing, considering his plan to remove the Palestinians is illegal under the UN. Although, it seems you don’t really need to listen to the UN because nothing really happens.
I agree with this, if I understand correctly. The US has held financial hegemony to make itself rich and powerful, in exchange for providing security to other parts of the world that may otherwise compete. If it now wants to turn its back, that’s fine – Europe should really be looking after itself. But what incentive is there to continue going along with a system of trade and finance that suits the Americans first and foremost, especially one that wage trade wars on its allies and and threatens to conquer their territory? If it’s “America First” then the idea everyone else should look the other way whilst they print as many dollars as they want or, even worse, be dragged into a war in the Pacific, then I’d say no thanks Donny.
Agreed!
Current estimates of Russian defence spend exceeds that of all European countries combined when translated to purchasing-power-parity dollars. The figures come from the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, which isn’t normally alarmist. Last year Russia spent $146bn, 6.7% of GDP, which adjusted for purchasing power parity was a whopping $462bn. This year it’s on track to hit 7.5% of GDP.
NATO largely killed off the Soviet Union by outspending it in defence. Now Europe is being outspent in defence by Russia alone. ENATO can’t easily handle Russia. It would require will and unanimity of purpose, both of which are in such short supply right now that Trump can give away Ukraine on a whim.
Just let me add to those who think Russia’s defence spending is unsustainable, that Britain spent over 50% of GDP on defence in WW2 over four years. Russia spending 7 or 8% is easily sustainable so long as the Russian people have the will to fight. When Trump talks about NATO spending 5%, he doing the right thing. Not because NATO is willing to spend that much, but because Western politicians need to be shaken out of thinking 2% or 2.5% is enough. Current Western spending is paving the road to global war at best, or at worst the quiet concession of the global order with nothing more than a whimper in protest.
The US is actually concerned most NATO members can’t honour article 5 because they don’t spend enough on defence. If Canada or USA was attacked how many NATO members can’t contribute accroos all services to a fight with a peer adversary outside Europe.
You know the US army only has 450,000 personnel right, that’s not very big by historic standards. European NATO has twice as many uniformed personnel as the USA and three times more in land army including the USMC. European NATO also has double the population, significantly more industry and a much healthier population available for conscription that they USA.
That’s what the USA needs NATO for. What’s does NATO need the USA for?
So we can get dragged into a pacific war with China?
How much is deployable? How many are actually equipped, trained to deployable levels, actually have ammunition etc. How many of your citizens would actually be loyal to your countries and answer the call to service? You know instead waving Palestinian flags or burning their own cities down at the slightest notion of a cut to the dole. You couldn’t even get your police to crackdown on grooming gangs for twenty years. How are you going to raise armies and convince young men to do violence on your behalf? With what? Cries of “for the EU and two tier Kier.”
Elon, is that you? Outside of some right wing Twitter echo-chambers and Russian bot farms, British and European cities are still standing and, whilst many feel strongly about the dehumanization of Palestinians, few would see that as reason to capitulate against a mortal threat to the realm. I don’t know whether you worship King Donald, or Emperor Putin, but in the UK, I can’t think of anyone that would fight for a Prime Minister, even those that might support said PM. Childish comments about the EU and ‘two-tier’ etc. mark you out as someone who isn’t credible, or otherwise a sad troll. You’re on the wrong forum pal.
Your own polling says they would refuse service and especially the younger demographic that has been taught to hate themselves and their own nations. Now do tell me how are you going to convince young men outside of London to die for a city and financial/political class that hates themselves and their fellow citizens?
Quoting a poll by right wing agitators and traitors to the nation GB “News” means very little. Even at face value, that poll says 17% of British people (and 14% of under 24s) would willingly fight for their country. Why you think we’d need an army of more than 10 million people is for you to explain. Further, the only voices talking about self-loathing are the rabid extremes of the left and right wing of politics and Russian trolls. The UK is one of the most innovative, progressive and dynamic places to be in the world – half the world wants to be here – and the younger generation are front and centre in keeping the UK that way. We, as a nation, have and continue to achieve things Russians and even many other developed countries can only dream of. Even most Americans live poorer and die younger, with fewer opportunities. The UK is fine, but thanks for your concern. Give Twitter a break.
They are almost all deployable with in their national boundaries which is where they would be required to be deployed to defend Europe.
The polls are misleading also. The UK isn’t and hasn’t been under threat for several decades. If it was i suspect that number would change rapidly.
The poll was about how proud you are of our country, and I feel less proud in 2025 than I did in 2012 (kinda height other way with golden jubilee and london olyphics). The racism making into main stream media and polictics depresses me, its not the country i grew up in. I don’t blame people for feeling less patriotic.
M you have a statistically lower standard of living than Mississippi. As for why those numbers you just quoted are bad how many of that 14% (and that is the number E1-E5 are a young man’s work)
from that you have to subtract fit for service, ratio of support vs combat arms, numbers capable of being removed from the economy, number employed in day to day operations of the country (everything from electricians, plumbers, builders etc.)
As for why you need millions that is the verdict of history and current events. Ukraine isn’t on the back foot because they screwed up spectacularly ( they made mistakes but no less than can be reasonably expected) their problem isn’t even a real lack of equipment or inability to use weapons provided (that is their general staff and Zelensky’s excuse) their problem is by a very large amount not enough men and a insufficient emphasis on training and command above the company level. No infantry and insufficient integration training of brigades is going to be their downfall.
Jim, okay within or on the borders of the EU do the armies of Europe have enough trucks for prolonged deployment away from railheads? A reserve of rolling stock for the railroads and locomotives that can and would be blasted out of existence? Also again are they properly trained and ready for action with a peer or near peer force? You know like the Germans who took broomsticks to live fire training recently. The only army in Europe I would judge at an acceptable readiness are the Poles and even then I doubt their ability to conduct operations beyond their railheads.
In one sentence you rant on about how Ukraine is woefully undermanned, underprepared and incapable, then in the next rant about how Europe doesn’t have enough trucks or logistics etc. If the former can not only hold back, but absolutely decimate the Russian army before it can even get out of territory it claims is Russian, what hope does it have of rolling through Europe? We therefore do not need an army of 10 million. Have you ever left the US? Last time I was in Philly (prime Trump territory) a guy proudly declared he’s just discovered the US has huge mountains between where he lives and the West coast, and he was MAGA too. Have you been to Europe (Russia doesn’t count) or do you get your Mississippi has a better standard of living from a Twitter post?
This is silly. If you have 1 soldier you still can honour an Article V situation.
And for your second point: Pretty much all of them.
Yes agree, it is a total myth perpetuated about European militaries. Why would anyone pay for soldiers that cannot fight. They may not be able to deploy to the other side of the world but they can by and large deploy with in their own boarders which is where they are needed for European defence.
Ukraine had 35,000 in its Army in 2022 it had 1 million trained soldiers deployed with in two years.
You sure on them figures? I thought they were already way higher than that by 2022 due to the crimea occupation.
I did a quick check and seems 300k, having not been below 100k since it seperated from Russia. Not 100% on them figures as not fully source checked.
“IF USA was attacked”
The USA WAS attacked in 2001, resulting in the first and only time Article V has been triggered. Or did you not notice all the NATO forces in Afghanistan…?
Mr. Bell,
Believe you have uncovered the master strategy for the rearmament of ENATO. It is either an instance of complete serendipity, or some seriously intelligent Machiavellian maneuvering by multiple government s. 🤔 The Donald (aka the Bad Cop) will receive all the opprobrium for compelling NATO to adopt defence expenditure rate, which in hindsight, should never have been broached as a result of the “peace dividend.” Latest SWAG based upon reports from multiple sources is a range between 3-4% of GDP, to be adopted as a revised goal at the June NATO Summit. ENATO governments (including HMG, aka the God Cops) will be able to credibly claim that Uncle Sugar is compelling them to comply w/ revised defence expenditure target, if only to preserve NATO. ENATO governments will begin process of amending social-welfare contracts w/ respective populations, in order to accommodate increased defence spending. The SDR final report, which may well be delayed to coincide w/ results of NATO Summit, should be a fascinating document. Hopefully, MoD will have the funding available to address multiple issues across all services. Personal recommendation would be to emphasize RAF & RN requirements, as UK top trump card capabilities, while gradually increasing the capabilities of the British Army.
There is nothing Machiavellian about Donald Trump or Pete Hegseth.
What a fcuking stupid, ignorant comment. Why do you bother?
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but surely we can use all Russian siezed assets in the UK to fund our defence industry, as compensation for numerous crimes against us.
The big shocker will come when mad Vlad demands all sanctions are lifted for peace, not that they do much good anyhow. The Yanks will sell Europe down the river under Trump, not that most Yanks give a hoot for Europe as they don’t know where it is. Yanks will get all the re-building work in Ukraine and we will get a Spar shop in Kyiv to redecorate. WE should learn who our friends are and it isn’t the Yanks.
For me I’d say to Trump dont expect a modern day Force Z (HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse) any day soon if China attacks. I’m surprised he doesnt realise the World is a lot smaller than 1941 and he wont be able to stay out if Putin lunges at Berlin in 5 years time.
Because that helped so much last time?
No, but Admiral Sommerville very nearly sank the Japanese Carrier force a few months before Midway, only missing them due to a scout plane not getting a message off. The RN, unlike Japan, could carry out night time carrier ops, and their gun line would have put the Japanese ships to the bottom of the sea.
Mad Vlad will follow Xi’s Great Plan.
Which will to create a diversion or test some of the Chinese weapons that will have been developed as a result of the disastrous Russian performance.
Valuable data will have been retrieved from the Houthi’s crackpot activities as live firing of state of the art munitions will have occurred at times and places of their choosing.
Most of this is isn’t as random as it seems.
Apart from Iran getting its ass handed to it.
To be honestly even if the likes of Russia ( and it’s 6 satellite states), Iran ( and its proxies) and North Korea are not following a plan by Xi if a Sino US war kicks off these three states will very likely choose to act anyway…just like Russia, Italy and Japan essentially using Germanys aggression as a launch pad for their own.
It’s why people keep giving the answer to the wrong question when suggesting NATO could handle Russia in Eastern Europe or the U.S and Japan could handling the PLAN in the western pacific…
The question is can the western liberal democracies prosecute and win ( militarily, economically, industrially and politically) a years long war spanning every ocean, sea and continent against Russia in Europe and the pacific, Iran and its proxies in the Middle East, North Korea in the Korean Peninsula and china across the indo pacific..as well as a load of conflicts and bush wars in Africa and possibly South America for access to resources…because that’s what WW3 may well look like.
Pretty sure that’s what WW3 did going to look like.
People think WW2 started in 1939, but ask the Czechs or the Chinese and they’ll tell you it began way before then, it’s just the rest of the world hadn’t gotten involved.
Peace has broken out on the Ostfront ‘£3bn for as long as it takes’ it didn’t take long, all hail the American Emperor. ☠️✌️
And you’re celebrating Russia’s illegal and evil seizure of a large chunk of Ukraine.
Says a lot about you. None of it good.
Agreed, the $300+B in Russian assets embargoed w/in Europe will factor in any UKR settlement, both as a carrot and stick. Guaranteed. As Deep Throat stated during Watergate scandal, “follow the money.’ 😉
Possibly the most worry statement made by the U.S. is that it would not consider any peacekeeping forces from European NATO nations deployed as peacekeepers as part of any Ukrainian peace deal to be under the auspices or protection of the NATO treaty…just absorb that one for a a second, the UK, France and Germany each deploy a heavy brigade as peace keeping forces and war breaks out Russia can the “accidentally flatten some NATO brigades, essentially decimating some key NATO armies and the U.S. would not even consider it an article five violation.
“ If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-Nato mission and they should not be covered under Article 5,” he said, referring to the alliance’s mutual defence clause”
This would essentially be the US using the generalist nature of article 6 to leave NATO forces swinging in the wind….as I have said before this is profoundly short sighted of the US as there is a not small chance that china May decided to attack its western Pacific military infrastructure and whether Guam and Hawaii are covered by article 6 and so articles five is an open question that would be decided by the NATO council if an attack happened..essentially ENATO members would choose…if an attack on western pacific US territory was a collective defence responsibility or if they were neutral.