Britain has said it will supply the Ukrainian armed forces with long-range artillery and armoured vehicles, as international allies agree to send more military aid to help the country resist the Russian invasion.
After a conference call with defence ministers from over 35 nations, including the United States, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said, “there will be more lethal aid going into Ukraine.”
“Ukraine needs longer range artillery and that’s because of what the Russian army has been doing which is now digging in and starting to pound these cities with artillery,” he told Sky News on March 31.
“The best counter to that is other long-range artillery so they’ll be looking for and getting more long-range artillery, ammunition predominantly.”
Ukraine also needs equipment to defend its coastline against Russian activity from the sea, Wallace said, adding Britain will be “looking to see what more we can do.”
He said Ukraine is also looking for armoured vehicles and more anti-air weapons, “all of this will be forthcoming as result of this conference.”
Wallace said Russia is now a “lesser country” as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin “is not the force he used to be,” and is “now a man in a cage he built himself.”
“His army is exhausted, he has suffered significant losses. The reputation of this great army of Russia has been trashed.
“He has not only got to live with the consequences of what he is doing to Ukraine, but he has also got to live with the consequences of what he has done to his own army.”
The defence secretary said Russian forces appear to be regrouping and shifting their focus towards the south and east of Ukraine.
“We have seen it before. It always gets worse. It goes for more civilian attacks, more civilian areas,” he said.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Britain’s chief of the defence staff, expressed similar sentiments.
In a speech at an Institute for Government (IfG) event, Radakin said Putin was a “weaker and more diminished figure today” than he was before the invasion started on Feb. 24.
He said the Russian leader had been “misled” about the effectiveness of his country’s armed forces, with “early indications” suggesting Moscow was withdrawing troops—a move that has opened them up to counter attacks by Ukrainian defenders.
He announced that the UK was “incredibly cautious” about believing Russian claims of ground troops withdrawing from Kyiv but said there did appear to be signs the Kremlin was preparing to focus its efforts on the east and south of Ukraine.
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