UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has been warned by a Kremlin adviser that "unknown sources" could carry out a "semi-military" response against British drone factories, in retaliation for the UK sharing military blueprints with Ukraine. The warning came during Burnham's first official international trip, made shortly after he became prime minister in July, during which he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and chaired a "coalition of the willing" meeting, reaffirming British support for Ukraine amid intensifying Russian strikes.

Andrei Fedorov, a former Russian deputy foreign minister now advising the Kremlin, told BBC Newsnight that President Putin faced pressure to act against the UK following its decision to hand over blueprints enabling Ukraine to produce Scalp cruise missiles domestically; he suggested factories producing drones for Ukraine could be attacked by unidentified actors rather than Russia directly. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov separately said Russian forces were already gathering data to locate and destroy missile production sites, accusing Britain of prolonging the war. Burnham, who also plans to travel to New York in September to lobby President Trump on Ukraine's defence needs, dismissed the criticism, while Ukraine continues to seek 300 Patriot missiles from allies ahead of an expected winter escalation in Russian strikes on energy infrastructure.