‘I AM HERE today to show the United Kingdom’s steadfast support for the Ukraine,’ Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said yesterday at a joint press conference in Kiev along with Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Ivanovych Kuleba.
She had flown to Ukraine to outline a new trilateral anti-Russian alliance between Poland, Ukraine and the UK.
She said: ‘We are very proud of the United Kingdom to be at the very forefront of support for Ukraine.
‘We have provided defensive weapons and we have trained 22,000 members of the Ukrainian Army.
‘When the Prime Minister visited Ukraine earlier this month he announced that we are providing £88m to support Ukraine’s democracy and energy independence.
‘Today, I can announce the next component of our support, increasing the funding of these projects to a value of £100m.
‘I am also proud together with Dmytro to be launching our new trilateral partnership with Poland and Ukraine.
‘We will intensify work on defence and security, sanctions, energy security and countering disinformation.
‘This demonstrates that the United Kingdom is willing and ready to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with allies across eastern and central Europe.’
Keleba replied: ‘We must put our full trust in Truss.’
Meanwhile, Russia said it is not ready to and will not consider complaints, including from the US, on how Russia deploys its armed forces on its own soil, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday.
‘First of all, we are not ready to and we won’t consider complaints with regards to how we move the armed forces on the territory of our country.
‘This is our sovereign right and we don’t intend to discuss it with anyone,’ the Kremlin official said in response to a request to comment on information that Russia allegedly continues to send its troops to the border with Ukraine.
He reiterated that earlier, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin that ‘certain phases of drills in regions adjacent to the border with Ukraine, in Crimea, are nearing completion’.
- Heavy fire and explosions were reported yesterday on the contact line in Ukraine’s war-torn Donbass region, with the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) reporting that Ukrainian government troops attacked the outskirts of its territory. According to the DPR, units from Kiev fired at several towns and villages using 82 millimetre mortars, hand grenades and rifles.
• Yesterday Russia expelled the US deputy ambassador from its embassy in Moscow.
