Sunak to announce UK’s ‘largest ever’ military support package for Ukraine

Al Jazeera:

The United Kingdom has unveiled its largest ever military support package to help Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion.

London said in a statement on Tuesday that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will give details on the 500-million-pound ($620m) package during a visit to Poland. Ukraine has been calling desperately for increased aid as Russian forces have started to make headway on the front lines and have increased their air strikes.

The UK made the announcement as the White House seeks to push through a long-delayed aid package from the United States worth about $60bn.

The money will take the overall total of UK military aid to Ukraine to 3 billion pounds ($3.71bn) in the current financial year, the British government said.

The new package will fund ammunition, air defences, drones and engineering support. The government said the drones “will be procured in the UK and the funds will support a scale-up in domestic defence supply chains”.

What the UK is calling its “largest ever single package of equipment” will also include 60 boats and more than 1,600 attack and defence missiles as well as Storm Shadow long-range, precision-guided missiles.

More than 400 vehicles, including 162 armoured vehicles, will also be delivered as well as 4 million rounds of small arms ammunition.

“Defending Ukraine against Russia’s brutal ambitions is vital for our security and for all of Europe. If Putin is allowed to succeed in this war of aggression, he will not stop at the Polish border,” Sunak said.