Ukraine

Boris Johnson sets out new £300m military aid package to Ukraine

A new £300m military aid package from the UK to Ukraine will include a range of systems, including electronic warfare equipment, Boris Johnson has confirmed.

In what was the first address to the parliament in Kyiv since Russia's invasion began, the Prime Minister announced the offer by video link.

A counter battery radar system, GPS jamming equipment and thousands of night vision devices will also be part of the package.

In addition, the UK is to supply heavy lift aerial drones to provide logistical support to Ukrainian forces that have become isolated.

Mr Johnson said: "I can announce today from the UK Government a new package of support totalling £300m, including radars to pinpoint the artillery bombarding your cities, heavy lift drones to supply your forces and thousands of night vision devices."

More than a dozen new specialised Toyota Land Cruisers are also being sent to protect civilian officials in eastern Ukraine and to evacuate civilians from frontline areas, following a request from the Ukrainian government.

"We will carry on supplying Ukraine, alongside your other friends, with weapons, funding and humanitarian aid, until we have achieved our long-term goal, which must be so to fortify Ukraine that no-one will ever dare to attack you again," said Mr Johnson.

The Prime Minister saluted the resistance of Ukrainians in the face of the brutal Russian invasion, telling them it is their country's "finest hour" in an address to the parliament in Kyiv – a nod to Winston Churchill's 1940 address to Britons after the fall of France in the Second World War.

"This is Ukraine's finest hour, that will be remembered and recounted for generations to come," he said.

"Your children and grandchildren will say that Ukrainians taught the world that the brute force of an aggressor counts for nothing against the moral force of a people determined to be free."

Watch: The Foreign Secretary has already called on NATO partners to dig deep into military inventories.

The address follows Mr Johnson's unannounced visit to the Ukrainian capital last month, in a show of support and solidarity with President Volodymyr Zelensky, who spoke to UK Parliament in March and evoked another of Mr Churchill's wartime addresses, declaring: "We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets."

The latest military support package from Britain comes after ministers updated Parliament last week on plans to send sophisticated long-range Brimstone missiles and Stormer air defence vehicles.

The Prime Minister admitted the West had made a mistake in not helping Ukraine in 2014, as he addressed the country's MPs.

Boris Johnson said: "We know what happens to the people left in the clutches of this invader.

"We, who are your friends, must be humble about what happened in 2014 because Ukraine was invaded before for the first time when Crimea was taken from Ukraine and the war in the Donbas began.

"The truth is that we were too slow to grasp what was really happening and we collectively failed to impose the sanctions then that we should have put on Vladimir Putin.

"We cannot make the same mistake again," he added.