Britain and its allies need to help prise Russian forces out of Ukraine like “a limpet off the rock”, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said.
Mr Wallace said the UK would continue to supply weapons to the government in Kyiv, and was looking at the options for providing anti-ship missiles.
The UK Ministry of Defence said despite the losses of the cruiser Moskva and the landing ship Saratov, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet retained the ability to strike targets in Ukraine.
We have to help Ukrainians effectively get the limpet off the rock and keep the momentum pushing them back
In its latest intelligence assessment it said the Russian navy currently had around 20 vessels in the area, including submarines.
Mr Wallace said it was vital that Ukraine, as a major grain producer, continued to have access to the Black Sea as an outlet for its exports.
“We have said we will source and supply, if we can, anti-ship missiles,” he told Sky News.
“It’s incredibly important that the grain that affects us all, the food prices, does get to get out of Ukraine, that the Russians can’t control the Black Sea.”
In a keynote speech on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the objective should be to drive Russia out of “the whole of Ukraine”.
Mr Wallace said it had always been the position of the international community that Russia should withdraw from Ukrainian territory since President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea.
However, he said there was “a long way to go” before the Ukrainians were able to reclaim the land it lost in 2014.
He said the Russians appeared to be preparing to dig in to the territory they seized in the east of the country in their latest invasion.
“We’ve constantly said that Russia should leave Ukraine sovereign territory so that hasn’t changed,” he said.
“I think it’s certainly the case that Putin, having failed in nearly all objectives, may seek to consolidate what he’s got, sort of fortify and dig in, as he did in 2014, and just be a sort of cancerous growth within the country of Ukraine and make it very hard for people to move them out of those fortified positions,” he said.
“So I think it’s really about if we want this to not happen, we have to help Ukrainians effectively get the limpet off the rock and keep the momentum pushing them back.”
In her speech at the Mansion House, Ms Truss said the crisis in Ukraine should be a “catalyst” for an overhaul to the West’s approach to international security.
She said the UK needed to strengthen its military while building alliances with free nations around the world, using their economic power to deter aggressors who “do not play by the rules”.
We have shown with Russia the kind of choices that we’re prepared to make when international rules are violated
The G7 group of leading industrialised nations should act as an “economic Nato” defending collective prosperity, while the Western military alliance must be prepared to open its doors to countries such as Finland and Sweden.
Ms Truss singled out China, which has refused to condemn the invasion of Ukraine, while increasing imports from Russia and commenting on “who should or shouldn’t be a Nato member”.
“China is not impervious. They will not continue to rise if they do not play by the rules,” she said.
“China needs trade with the G7. We have shown with Russia the kind of choices that we’re prepared to make when international rules are violated.”
