Andy Burnham hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a UK naval base on Monday, marking his first international visitor just a week after becoming Prime Minister. Burnham announced that Britain would hand over the intellectual property behind its "Stone Cloak" electronic warfare system, allowing Ukraine to manufacture the anti-drone jamming technology at scale, in a move he said demonstrated Britain's "unwavering" support for Kyiv as the war with Russia continues.

The tablet-sized Stone Cloak device blocks Russian detection of drones it is fitted to, and the Ministry of Defence has already supplied thousands of the jammers to Ukrainian forces; the technology is also expected to feature in Britain's next generation of long-range strike weapons, including the Project Brakestop cruise missile programme. During the visit, the two leaders met more than 200 Ukrainian troops who had completed Exercise Sea Breeze, a three-week Black Sea warfighting and counter-mine training programme in the UK. The visit came as Romania reported shooting down a suspected Russian Shahed-type drone that crossed into its airspace on Sunday, the fourth such NATO-coordinated interception in recent months and the third incursion in three days.