Following the visit of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to Kyiv on January 13th, an agreement on security cooperation was signed. The commitment builds up on the agreement between G7 countries to provide bilateral security guarantees for Ukraine, signed during the NATO summit in Vilnius, July 2023.
The official follow-up message by the UK government details that on top of that, Great Britain plans to raise its military aid to Ukraine in 2024 and 2025 to GBP 2.5 billion, which is £200 million more than provided in the 2022–2023 period and equivalent to approximately USD 3.2 billion.
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"The funding will help to leverage the best of UK military expertise and defense production to ensure Ukraine’s victory on the battlefield, including in critical areas like long-range missiles, air defense, artillery ammunition, and maritime security," the statement says.
Based on this description, Defense Express assumes the additional deliveries of Storm Shadow LACMs, air defense systems armed with AIM-132 ASRAAM missiles, as well as 105mm and 155mm artillery ammunition will commence.
A significant portion of the aid, £200 million ($255 million), will be directed towards the urgent purchase and production of thousands of drones for Ukraine, including surveillance, long-range strike and sea drones.
"This will be the largest delivery of drones to Ukraine from any nation. Most of the drones are expected to be manufactured in the UK, and the Ministry of Defence will work with international partners to significantly scale up the number of drones provided for Ukraine’s defense," the government's press service noted.
The scale of military aid provided in this commitment can be illustrated in comparison with Ukraine's own defense spending. For 2024, the Ukrainian state budget allocated UAH 265 billion, i.e., about $6.73 billion for procurement of arms, ammunition, and equipment for the armed forces.
Apart from military support, Britain provides an additional £18 mln in humanitarian aid, some of which goes to rescue services and £8 mln will strengthen energy infrastructure, which had suffered substantial damage in last year's missile strikes launched by russia.
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