United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Cameron visited Ukrainian President Zelensky in Kyiv today and made several announcements. The first being 3B GBP of annual military aid for Ukraine for “as long as it takes” and the second being that the United Kingdom no longer objects to its supplied weapons being used to strike targets inside Russia.
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— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / ????????? ?????????? (@ZelenskyyUa) May 3, 2024
The Announcement
The Foreign Secretary’s comments to Reuters in Kyiv read below:
“We will give three billion pounds every year for as long as is necessary. We’ve just really emptied all we can in terms of giving equipment…Some of that (equipment) is actually arriving in Ukraine today, while I’m here…Ukraine has that right. Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it’s defending itself.”
Russian Presidential Spokesperson Peskov responded immediately and said these comments were a “direct escalation.” Before today, weapons from the United States, United Kingdom, the European Union and other bi-lateral weapons donations came with the caveat that they were not to be used inside Russia due to fear of escalation with Moscow. However, if Ukraine is now being green lit to use long range weapons against Russia proper, the Russian Federation could take more drastic steps to ensure that these weapons do not end up in Ukraine.
United Kingdom Leads the Charge as Western Nations Step Up Rhetoric
The United Kingdom was the first nation to supply longer-ranging weapons to Ukraine, such as the Storm Shadow cruise missile in May of 2023. While that delivery was sharply criticized by the Russian Federation, the UK was publicly adamant that it would not be used against targets in Russia. The Ukrainians promptly put them to use against targets in Crimea, which walks a grey line on Russian or Ukrainian territory and thus was acceptable to the Russian Federation.
This announcement only comes one day after French President Macron said again that his government cannot rule out deploying troops to Ukraine if Russian Ground Forces break through and Ukraine requested reinforcements, especially for defense of Kyiv.
