UK to provide 650 missiles toward Ukrainian air defenses

The announcement comes a few weeks after Vladimir Zelensky criticized the UK for its waning supplies of lethal aid

London will supply Kiev with £162 million ($213 million) worth of Martlet multirole missiles, with the first shipment set to arrive by the end of the year, the UK Defense Ministry said in a press release on Friday.

This comes after two weeks of Russian strikes on the Ukrainian military industrial and energy sector, as Russia advances in Donbass.

The announcement also comes after a bilateral meeting between UK Defense Secretary John Healey and his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, earlier this week, the press statement said. The UK will begin to deliver £300 million worth of artillery ammunition, as well as 650 Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM) systems, with the first shipments expected by the end of 2024, according to the press release.

The UK, which is among Ukraine’s biggest war sponsors, has provided Kiev with more than €8.92 billion in military aid since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, according to Germany’s Kiel institute.

Last month, however, Zelensky criticized the UK for its “slowed down” pace in providing weaponry. “We will insist on the need for bold steps, bold decisions,” he said in an address.

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Zelensky openly criticizes UK government

The delivery of LMM missiles is meant to boost Kiev’s air defenses against attacks like this week’s Russian strike on Poltava, Healey said.

Moscow struck “the 179th Joint Training Center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” with two Iskander ballistic missiles in the deadliest attack this year, the Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday. Foreign instructors were preparing Ukrainian communications and electronic warfare specialists, as well as drone operators at the facility, the ministry added. According to Ukrainian officials, the strike killed at least 55 and wounded 328 more.

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Russia only strikes military targets, unlike Kiev – Kremlin

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, speaking on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, stressed that the Russian Army only strikes military targets, while Ukraine uses cluster munitions against civilians. Russia is getting better at hitting foreign military instructors and mercenaries in Ukraine, he said, adding that “the direct involvement of foreign states in the conflict is evident.”

Moscow has warned that deliveries of Western weapons to Ukraine, as well as the training of Ukrainian troops by foreign military instructors, makes Kiev’s sponsors direct participants in the conflict. The supplies of weapons, however, will not alter the course of the conflict, but only result in more deaths, Russia has said.