The British prime minister said the personnel would assist Gulf partners in shooting down Iranian UAVs
The UK will deploy “experts from Ukraine” to the Middle East to help defend against Iranian drones, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Sunday. Shortly after his statement, Iran launched an attack on the British RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus, which London had allowed the US to use for operations against Tehran.
In a televised address, Starmer stated that while the UK will not take “offensive action” or join the US-Israeli campaign against Iran, it has agreed to let Washington use its military bases for strikes on Iranian missile launchers and storage depots.
“We will also bring experts from Ukraine together with our own experts to help Gulf partners shoot down Iranian drones attacking them,” Starmer said, framing the move as necessary to protect British citizens and partners in the region.
In an evening address on Sunday, Vladimir Zelensky claimed that Ukraine’s “experience in defense is largely irreplaceable,” stating that Kiev is prepared “to share this experience” with countries that have backed it in the conflict with Russia.
The announcement came as Iran and its allies have continued with retaliatory strikes against US, Israeli, and British targets across the Middle East following the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This included an attack on a military installation in Bahrain that Starmer said “narrowly missed British personnel.”
Starmer’s decision to allow US forces to use British bases has drawn criticism from opposition figures. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey warned against being “dragged into another prolonged Middle East war,” while Green Party co-leader Zach Polanski accused the prime minister of “failing to learn the lessons from the tragedies of Iraq, Libya and Syria.”
The US-Israeli strikes that killed Khamenei and several top Iranian commanders on Saturday have plunged the region into chaos, with shipping disrupted, air traffic halted, and thousands of tourists stranded.
Moscow has condemned the “political assassinations,” with President Vladimir Putin describing the killing as a “cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law.”
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