Burnham visits Kyiv to reaffirm UK support for Ukraine
Andy Burnham has travelled to Kyiv for his first foreign visit as prime minister, aiming to reaffirm UK support for Ukraine and mark the country's independence day. He is chairing his first meeting of the "coalition of the willing", the UK-France-led grouping, and will accept an award recognising British support for Ukraine, at a time when Russia has escalated strikes, including one on a shopping centre on Friday that killed at least 16 people.
Burnham said the UK's backing "will not waver" and pledged support "for as long as it takes", after Moscow warned of "consequences" over Ukraine's use of British drones in strikes on Russian oil refineries and infrastructure. The Russian embassy accused Britain of fuelling escalation, but Burnham insisted the UK's position was unchanged from previous governments. He is also expected to announce that defence firm MBDA will declassify information on UK components in the Scalp missile, as France considers setting up local assembly lines in Ukraine, while Russia's ambassador to London, Andrei Kelin, has separately left his post.
- Burnham visits Kyiv, his first trip abroad as PM, to back Ukraine
- Comes amid escalating Russian strikes and Moscow's drone warnings
- UK to declassify Scalp missile component data for Ukraine's defence
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Andy Burnham is the UK prime minister, and Kyiv is the Ukrainian capital he has now visited for the first time since taking office. Ukraine has been fighting to repel a full-scale Russian invasion that began in February 2022, and Western allies including Britain have supported it with weapons, funding and diplomatic backing. The "coalition of the willing" is a grouping led by the UK and France that coordinates support for Ukraine among sympathetic nations.
The visit falls around Ukraine's independence day, a national holiday marking its 1991 break from the Soviet Union, which has taken on added significance during the war with Russia. British support for Ukraine has included supplying military equipment such as Scalp missiles, made by the European defence firm MBDA, and more recently drones that Ukraine has used to strike targets inside Russia.
This matters because the war remains ongoing and deadly, with civilian casualties continuing on both sides, and because the level of Western military support directly affects Ukraine's ability to defend itself and Russia's response. Diplomatic relations between the UK and Russia have also been strained throughout the conflict, forming the backdrop against which any current developments should be understood.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters argue that Ukraine's sovereignty and the deterrence of aggression depend on sustained, visible allied backing, and that Burnham's visit, chairing of the coalition of the willing, and moves to boost missile transparency and local assembly signal reliability to both Kyiv and Moscow. They contend that wavering or hedging support, especially after previous governments committed to it, would reward escalation such as the deadly strike on the shopping centre and embolden further Russian aggression, while continuity in policy reassures allies that Britain's commitments outlast changes of leadership.
The case against
Sceptics argue that deepening involvement, including declassifying missile component details and enabling local assembly lines, risks further entangling Britain in the conflict and provoking exactly the retaliatory escalation Moscow has warned of, potentially raising risks to UK security without a clear exit strategy. They contend that resources and diplomatic capital might be better directed towards pursuing a negotiated settlement or focusing on domestic priorities, and that symbolic gestures like awards and high-profile visits should not substitute for a candid public debate about the long-term costs and endpoint of continued military support.