Sunak visits Ukraine to offer major UK air defense package

UK’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged his country will provide air defense equipment worth 50 million pounds ($59 million) to help protect Ukrainians from a barrage of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure.

The UK government announced the plan after a previously announced visit to Kyiv by Sunak on Saturday, his first since taking office in October, Bloomberg reported.

While Ukraine’s armed forces succeed in pushing back Russian forces on the ground, civilians are being brutally bombarded from the air,” Sunak said after meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“We are today providing new air defense, including anti-aircraft guns, radar and anti-drone equipment, and stepping up humanitarian support for the cold, hard winter ahead.”

Bloomberg reported that the package comprises 125 anti-aircraft guns and technology to counter Iranian-supplied drones, including dozens of radars and anti-drone electronic warfare capability.

Top Ukrainian officials have repeatedly called on allies to help the nation step up its air defenses, Bloomberg reported.

“This Russian terror is not just another enemy’s cruelty toward Ukrainians. It is a display of a cynical Russian anti-European policy, anti-human policy,” Zelenskyy said. He added that Ukraine had been preparing to export more electricity to the European Union, and that “Russian attacks also aimed at destroying our energy connection” to Europe.

“Every strike at Ukraine’s energy is a strike at the energy security of the whole continent,” he said.