Boris Johnson will describe Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion as the country’s “finest hour” when he addresses its parliament later. Speaking virtually to MPs on Tuesday, he will also set out details of £300m in extra military support. Downing Street said it would include electronic warfare equipment, a counter-battery radar system, GPS jammers and night-vision devices. It follows the PM’s unannounced visit to Kyiv last month. Mr Johnson’s speech is expected to echo the words of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, just as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky did when he addressed MPs at Westminster in March.
The prime minister is expected to say that the UK Parliament met throughout World War Two, just as Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has done through the war with Russia, and the British people showed “such unity and resolve that we remember our time of greatest peril as our finest hour”. “This is Ukraine’s finest hour, an epic chapter in your national story that will be remembered and recounted for generations to come,” he will say. “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.”
The latest tranche of military support includes radar systems designed to detect artillery projectiles and missiles and then locate the positions of the weapons that fired them. The UK is also supplying heavy-lift aerial drones, which can carry supplies to Ukrainian forces that have become isolated. And Downing Street said it would send more than a dozen new specialised Toyota Land Cruisers to protect civilian officials in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces are now concentrated.
The vehicles, which were requested by the Ukrainian government, could also be used to evacuate civilians from the front line. It comes after ministers said last week that they would soon be able to supply Ukraine with long-range Brimstone missiles, as well as sending Stormer armoured vehicles to support the country’s air defence. Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokeswoman Layla Moran said it was the right decision but “wrong timing” to send additional weapons to Ukraine, saying it was desperately needed a week ago. She questioned whether the prime minister had delayed the announcement ahead of local elections, a move she said was “deeply cynical”.
