- The UK government has vowed to “double down” on its assistance for Ukraine.
- While protecting defense funding.
- The UK has been one of the main weaponry suppliers to Ukraine.
Defense funding is a high priority for the UK government, which has vowed to “double down” on its assistance for Ukraine, according to Penny Mordaunt.
The government must provide Ukraine “the means to finish the job,” according to the former defense secretary, while simultaneously making sure that the UK has the resources to achieve it.
She emphasized, “We have always protected defense spending.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak asked the international community to continue to support Ukraine.
During this “critical period” in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Ms. Mordaunt said in an interview with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday that defense funding must be safeguarded.
She emphasized, “We have always protected defense spending.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak asked the international community to continue to support Ukraine.
She was questioned about how the government intended to deal with budget constraints brought on by inflation while simultaneously planning to “double down” on providing Ukraine with guns and training.
The administration has “made assurances that we are going to boost defense spending,” Ms. Mordaunt said in response.
She did, however, caution that any increases would not be confirmed until the chancellor’s Budget was made public in March.
Ms. Mordaunt emphasized that the administration has previously sought to increase defense spending by as much as 3%.
She said: “We now have to give Ukraine the means to finish that work. I was talking about the UK’s commitment to supporting Ukraine and how it balances with the defense budget. In just the next three months, we’ll be providing them with more help than we did the entire previous year.
“We have to do that. And of course we’re going to be ensuring we have the resources to do that.”
She added that the current Defense Secretary Ben Wallace had the task of “not just keeping everything going and obviously supporting Ukraine” but also of modernizing the armed forces.
“That means we’ve almost got to double run. We’ve got to rebuild these new technologies but also keep our current operations very strong”, she said.
When asked if the UK would send fighter jets to Ukraine—a request made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy—Ms. Mordaunt responded that “nothing is off the table” in terms of what supplies the UK might give Ukraine.
She continued, however, that even while it had not been ruled out, it was still important to take into account what would be best for Ukraine in the long- and short-term.
Mr. Wallace stated earlier this month that no equipment, such as fighter jets, would be transferred to Ukraine right once.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Mr. Sunak emphasized that the UK government was already “leading” the training of Ukrainian fighter jet pilots and that he would support any nations who were prepared to send fighter jets to Ukraine right away.
The UK has been one of the main weaponry suppliers to Ukraine in its fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invading forces, despite inflation and military budget cuts in the past.
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