European allies have announced a “surge” of military support for Ukraine, with the British government unveiling £450m ($580m) in UK-led aid. The support is partly aimed at strengthening the country’s position ahead of any peace deal with Russia. The UK will provide £350m this year, with Norway contributing further funding, Britain’s ministry of defence said on Friday. The funding will provide repairs and maintenance to vehicles and equipment as well as radar systems, anti-tank mines and hundreds of thousands of drones.
The UK and Germany are host a meeting of 50 nations at Nato’s headquarters in Brussels on Friday. British defence secretary John Healey and his German counterpart, defence minister Boris Pistorius, will co-chair the 27th Ukraine Defence Contact Group, a role previously performed by the US defence secretary until Donald Trump’s return to office.
Defence secretary Healey on Thursday pressed his counterparts from about 30 countries to forge ahead with plans to deploy troops to Ukraine under any future peace agreement with Russia. Having foreign troops on Ukrainian soil is a sticking point in talks with Russia. The UK is considering deploying troops to Ukraine for five years under plans being discussed by allies, the Telegraph reports, citing unnamed sources. Under the plan, one of a number of options on the table, a European-led force would be sent to Ukraine to initially deter Russia from breaching any settlement and to offer Kyiv’s troops some much-needed respite, the report added.
Prince Harry has visited amputees and wounded military personnel at an orthopaedic clinic in Ukraine, after spending two days at the high court in London appealing against the government’s decision to strip him of his security protection while he is in the UK. The prince met wounded veterans at the Superhumans Centre in Lviv, which treats and rehabilitates injured military personnel and civilians, including children, affected by the war. Harry, who served 10 years in the British army, was accompanied by a contingent from the Invictus Games Foundation, including four veterans who have been through similar rehabilitation experiences.
Russia is using slickly produced propaganda videos to recruit Chinese men to fight alongside its forces in Ukraine. The videos send a message about being “tough” men; some sound more like influencer advertisements for a working holiday. Others are cobbled-together screenshots by regular citizens about to leave China. But they all have one thing in common: selling the benefits of becoming a Chinese mercenary for Russia. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that two Chinese nationals had been captured in the eastern Donetsk region and accused Moscow of trying to involve China “directly or indirectly” in the conflict. A day later, he said the men were among at least 155 other Chinese members of Russia’s armed forces.
The top US commander in the Pacific has warned senators that the military support that China and North Korea are giving Russia in its war on Ukraine is a security risk in his region as Moscow provides critical military assistance to both in return. Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate armed services committee that China has provided 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the legacy chips to Russia to help Moscow “rebuild its war machine”. In exchange, he said, China is potentially getting help in technologies to make its submarines move more quietly, along with other assistance.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday its forces had captured the village of Zhuravka in Ukraine’s northern border region of Sumy, although Ukrainian officials made no acknowledgment that it had been taken. Moscow has long staged air attacks on the region opposite Russia’s region of Kursk, from which it is trying to evict remaining Ukrainian forces eight months after they launched a cross-border incursion and seized large chunks of territory. Ukrainian officials said there was intensified Russian military activity on their side of the border, but gave no acknowledgment that Zhuravka had fallen into Russian hands.
The US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, is stepping down from her post after nearly three years in Kyiv amid uncertainty over the Trump administration’s attempts to broker a peace deal to end the war. Her resignation had been expected for some time, especially considering the Trump administration’s premium on rapprochement with Russia and ending the war. Brink has been outspoken in her support for arming Ukraine and had continued her advocacy even after Donald Trump took office in January and began to pressure Ukraine to accept a ceasefire proposal.
