New British Prime Minister Andy Burnham made his first foreign visit as leader on Monday, visiting Ukraine where he spoke of a “100 year partnership” with Kyiv and handed over blueprints to an advanced Anglo-French missile, so Ukraine can build their own.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham laid flowers, gave speeches, and handed over the blueprints to a long-range bunker buster missile on Monday as he visited Kyiv to help mark Ukraine’s 35th annual independence day, marking the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. The news Britain’s Labour leader was handing over potent missile technology to Ukraine so Kyiv can produce the sophisticated deep strike weapons in their own factories triggered a protest from Moscow, which complained the UK is a full participant in the war and one that works to prevent peace.
Burnham arrived in Kyiv on Monday morning in the typical fashion for world leaders, by executive train from Poland given the danger of flying directly into the country, and met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The British leader will later chair a meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing — a group of European nations contributing to the defence of Ukraine — from Kyiv. Leaders including France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz will join in person or by teleconference.
In a speech affirming British support for Ukraine’s war aims and to mark the 35th anniversary of the end of the Soviet Union in Ukraine, PM Burnham made reference to Britain holding Nazi Germany at bay in 1940 and 1941, and said Ukraine was now doing the same to Putinist Russia. He said: “My nation, our nation kept the flame of European freedom alive in the 20th century Great Britain. You hold that flame in the 21st”, reports The Guardian.
The PM said “we all know” that Russia cannot win in Ukraine and promised “the UK is behind you today and for as long as it takes… I want the Ukrainian people to hear it directly from me that our support will not waver”. He went on: “Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve. We will not back down until there is a just and lasting peace.”
Ukraine is supplying Europe with security by acting as a bulwark on its eastern border, Burnham said, and added: “That’s why I believe the Ukrainian people deserve not just our continued support, but our gratitude and our respect… We will continue to build the 100 year partnership between our two countries… And despite Russia’s outrageous threats to my country, we will continue our support for Ukraine’s defence”.
The visit of Burnham on Monday marked the latest step in an apparently ongoing effort not just to buttress Ukraine’s defence by giving it the freedom to build its own advanced weaponry to freely provided Western designs, but — presuming Ukraine survives the war — to become an arsenal for Europe in the future. A spokesman for the Prime Minister said “the Government has agreed that defence firm MBDA can release classified information on UK components for the long-range missile, SCALP”.
The SCALP or Storm Shadow is an Anglo-French bunker buster cruise missile. France has already said it would be permitting Ukraine to build the missile domestically, but it has many British components, and the British government surrendering its classified intellectual property will allow the project to go ahead. Ukraine has already been given complete Storm Shadow missiles and the weapon gained international attention in 2023 when the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol was destroyed in a spectacular airstrike, with footage of the weapons plunging into the headquarters building and the hardened bunkers below captured by shocked onlookers.
Yet The Daily Telegraph reports that even with British and French blueprints ready to stand up serial production, even this sovereign European capability isn’t fully available to Ukraine because the there isn’t a fully European ‘kill chain’. The intelligence, targeting, and navigation data required to make successful launch of the powerful weapon still relies on the cooperation of Washington D.C., and the U.S. government remains apparently dedicated to preventing the war spiralling into a global conflict by blocking strikes on Moscow with Western weapons.
Ukraine has sought to step around these conditions by developing its own domestic drone industry, launching a series of strikes deep inside Russia to hit infrastructure well away from the front lines.
As is customary when a European state offers Ukraine a new military capability, the Kremlin responded with a statement warning Ukraine’s allies off. In comments that come just days after dark allusions to nuclear war and “consequences” after it was revealed Ukraine was using long-range British drones to strike deep inside Russia, President Vladimir Putin’s official spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday morning of the missle blueprints that “Britain is participating in this war. It is participating in this war on the side of the Kiev regime.”
He said at the Kremlin: “Britain methodically and regularly adds fuel to the fire [of the war]. And it methodically and regularly plots in order to prevent any development of the peaceful settlement process. This is exactly what the UK is doing.”
Prime Minister Burnham added a response in turn from Kyiv hours later, reflecting that if Britain is adding fuel to the fire, then “who started the fire?”.
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