Ukraine: Starmer and Healey underline commitment with drone package on 1,000th day of war
The Prime Minister and Defence Secretary have reiterated the UK's support for Ukraine on the 1,000th day of the war with the announcement of a new drone package.
Sir Keir Starmer said it was a "sobering milestone of 1,000 days since Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine".
"As the people of Ukraine continue to bravely defend their sovereignty, the UK's commitment to them remains ironclad," he insisted.
Defence Secretary John Healey visited a Ukrainian Catholic church in London with his Conservative shadow James Cartlidge to demonstrate cross-party support for Kyiv.
Mr Healey said: "The UK has stood side by side with our Ukrainian allies since day one of Putin's illegal full-scale invasion – leading international support, training 50,000 recruits and supplying weapons, drones and other crucial military kit."
To mark 1,000 days of the war, Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard is meeting Ukrainian recruits training on Operation Interflex.
The operation has seen more than 50,000 Ukrainian troops train on UK soil.
Mr Pollard said the training of the recruits was "an achievement which cannot be overstated". "Supported by instructors from 12 other nations, Operation Interflex has harnessed the world-leading skills and experience of the British Army to provide Ukraine with a reliable source of trained soldiers," he said.
The UK is providing £7.5m for new attack and surveillance drones.
The UAVs will be invested via the drone coalition led by the UK and Latvia, with the money drawn from the £3bn annual funding pool.
Ukraine has shown innovation in how to use drones on the battlefield, using inexpensive drones to destroy hundreds of comparatively more expensive Russian tanks and vehicles.
It has also used surveillance drones, enabling Ukrainian artillery to target and destroy Russian gun positions.
The UK has been running two competitions to design and procure new drones, including the use of first-person view (FPV) drones capable of moving past Russian defences.
The first competition is now complete, with thousands of FPV drones set to be delivered in the coming months.
On the 1,000th day of the war, the UK also sanctioned 10 Russian officials and state-linked youth organisations which it says were involved in a systematic attempt to indoctrinate Ukrainian children.
The UK Government said more than 19,500 Ukrainian children had been forcibly transferred or deported to Russia and the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
Roughly 6,000 Ukrainian children have been relocated to a network of re-education camps.
When they arrive there, it said those Ukrainian children are then subjected to indoctrination efforts which seek to erode their Ukrainian identity and instil pro-Russian sentiments.
This is a strategy dating back to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea more than 10 years ago, according to the Foreign Office.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said "no child should ever be used as a pawn in war".
"President Putin's targeting of Ukrainian children shows the depths he will go to in his mission to erase Ukraine and its people from the map," he added.
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