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November 8, 2024 – 21:28
London, Nov 8 (EFE).- Relations between Ukraine and the United Kingdom have “worsened” since the arrival of Keir Starmer‘s Labor Government to power in July, according to official sources in kyiv commented this Friday to the British newspaper The Guardian.
«Starmer is not giving us long-range weapons. The situation is not the same as when Rishi Sunak was Prime Minister. “The relationship has gotten worse,” said a senior executive official of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to the British newspaper, at a time of enormous concern for Ukraine after Donald Trump’s electoral victory in the United States.
The Labor ‘premier’ and the Ukrainian head of state have met six times since he came to the Government, the last this Thursday at the summit of the European Political Community (EPC) in Budapest (Hungary), but Starmer has not yet set foot on the ground Ukrainian since he became the tenant of 10 Downing Street.
kyiv warns, however, that Starmer’s trip to Ukraine would only be worth it if the British commits to replenishing stocks of the long-range Storm Shadow missiles.
«It makes no sense for me to come as a tourist. “At this time (Starmer) is not willing to make the necessary decisions,” the official told The Guardian, which indicated that Labor had postponed the visit to Ukraine on several occasions since August.
Conservative Rishi Sunak visited the Ukrainian capital in November 2022, just a month after becoming prime minister; His predecessor, Tory Boris Johnson, maintained a close relationship with Zelensky and Ukraine considered the United Kingdom a “critical source of support” after Russia began its large-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
Starmer and Zelensky held a meeting on the sidelines of the CPE summit in Budapest this Thursday, where the Labor leader expressed to the Ukrainian president his “deep concern” about the growing presence of North Korean troops on the Ukrainian border and reaffirmed the “support “firm” of the United Kingdom for as long as necessary until Russia’s withdrawal.
For his part, the president of Ukraine said this Thursday that he was “grateful” to Starmer and the British people for being on his side in difficult times: “We are very proud of the solid bilateral relations between our nations,” Zelensky wrote in the social network
Likewise, he added that they had discussed that an important element of their ‘Plan for Victory’ is “supplying Ukraine with long-range weapons and allowing their use against military targets on Russian territory.”
Privately, sources in kyiv told The Guardian that the two leaders’ meeting in Hungary did not represent “any progress” on the missile issue.
The United Kingdom is currently the third country that has provided the most military equipment to Ukraine, after the United States and Germany, some 12.8 billion pounds (15.427 million euros) since 2022.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House is worrying in Ukraine, given the possibility that the Republican will decide to cut or reduce military aid and force kyiv to negotiate a forced peace with Russia. EFE
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