The FCDO itself has a small presence in the country in the form of the British embassy, which has relocated to Lviv near the Polish border, nearly 300 miles west of the capital, Kyiv. Around half of the embassy’s personnel are understood to still be in the country. Up to 5,000 British citizens were estimated to be living in Ukraine before the crisis.
- NATO and the Ministry of Defence will be studying the battlefields of Ukraine closely to work out what it would mean if British forces ever became involved in a fight with the Russians.
- Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its radar detected the launch of two Ukrainian missiles when a Russian Il-76 transport plane crashed on Wednesday.
- Moscow had aimed to seize control of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, soon after launching its invasion.
- Russia has seized Ukrainian territory before, when it annexed Crimea in 2014, following fierce protests in Ukraine that toppled the country's pro-Russian president.
- The memorandum is not a treaty and lawyers dispute whether it is legally enforceable.
The Netherlands has joined the IT coalition to aid Ukraine in its war efforts, Ukraine’s defence ministry said today. The diminishing prospects for a deal leave congressional leaders with no clear way to approve a White House request for $110bn in emergency funding for Ukraine, Israel, immigration enforcement and national security needs. The Democratic president said in a statement that the policies proposed would “be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country”. The US is planning to station nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time in 15 years amid a growing threat from Russia, according to a report. Warheads three times as strong as the Hiroshima bomb would be located at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk under the proposals, the Daily Telegraph reported. Balazs Orban, chief political aide to the prime minister, said Hungary sent a proposal to the EU over the weekend showing it was open to using the budget for the aid package if other "caveats" were added.
Ukraine war: What Russia's escalating air attacks mean
He said the UK was "leading on creating a package of economic sanctions" against Russia and was supplying defensive weaponry to Ukraine. Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg criticised Russia's "reckless" attack on Ukraine and said despite weeks of tireless international diplomacy, Russia had chosen "the path of aggression". European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen accused Mr Putin of "bringing war back to Europe" and warned a raft of "massive" sanctions would be proposed later aimed at Russia's economic base and its "capacity to modernise". Writing on Twitter, he added the US and its allies and partners would impose "severe sanctions on Russia" and continue to provide support to Ukraine and its people. Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the defence select committee, said the West had failed to alter the trajectory of the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainians have in fact got ahead of Western militaries by developing a system - with British assistance - that uses radar and computing power to work out exactly where enemy positions are firing from. "We think, in orbit… they're using some of their things as ASATS (anti-satellite weapons). Actually, just colliding with them, we can't prove that. And they may be able to disable some of them electronically as well." Providing Ukraine with access to Elon Musk's Starlink system has changed the game for its forces' ability to communicate in the field.
Russia, Ukraine And Nato: Everything You Need To Know
Calls have recently come from senior figures on both sides of the Atlantic for the UK to be prepared in case of a potential war between Nato forces and Russia. Earlier this week, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing head of the British army, said its 74,000-strong ranks need to be bolstered by at least 45,000 reservists and citizens in order to be better readied for possible conflict. Earlier this month, its civil defence minister told a defence conference "there could be a war in Sweden".
Russia is continuing to bombard Ukraine with missiles, with heavy fire directed at the city of Kharkiv. The General Staff statement amounted to a justification for firing on such a plane - without saying openly what it did. It also said that Russia usually provides information on the route and transport that's to be used for a swap, to make sure it's safe. But dismissing https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-is-a-false-flag-operation-in-ukraine.html doesn't mean dismissing the chance that Ukraine has made a terrible mistake.
But European nations closer to Russian borders appear to be taking it more seriously. Germany's Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius, recently told a German newspaper "we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a Nato country one day". While he said such an attack is unlikely now, "our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible". The UK has been vocal in its support for Ukraine against Russian aggression, providing military aid and announcing sanctions on Russian banks and oligarchs.
Ukraine uses German-made Gepard anti-aircraft guns to tackle incoming drones, while Soviet-era Buk systems are used against cruise missiles and US-made Patriots against hypersonic Kinzhal missiles. Analysis published in Le Monde quotes Ukrainian officials who said Russia still has in its stockpile around 1,000 ballistic or cruise missiles, and is able to make around 100 more per month - such as Kalibrs and Kh-101s. At least 32 people have died in Ukraine's capital in that time, 30 of them in one attack - on 29 December, when Russia launched one of the largest ever aerial attacks of this war. The UK has been threatened with a "military response" by Russia after pledging to send long-range missiles to Ukraine. Right now, such scenarios tend to exercise only the minds of Ministry of Defence war-gamers and military thriller writers.
- A Russian lawmaker said earlier on Wednesday that the plane had been shot down by US or German missiles supplied to Ukraine.
- For now the UK appears likely to stick to sanctions rather than engaging in direct military action unless a Nato ally is attacked, although some Conservative MPs have called for the Government to provide air support to Ukraine.
- The size of its active armed forces is only 19,000 personnel, but it can call on another 238,000 reserves.