Boris Johnson has met with the Ukrainian president in Kyiv in a "show of solidarity" with the country, Downing Street confirmed.
The Prime Minister will use the visit to set out a new package of financial and military aid to Volodymyr Zelensky.
A No 10 spokesperson said: “The Prime Minister has travelled to Ukraine to meet President Zelensky in person, in a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian people.”
“They will discuss the UK’s long term support to Ukraine and the PM will set out a new package of financial and military aid.”
The surprise visit comes after the UK pledged to send £100 million worth of military equipment, including ore Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank weapons and “precision munitions”.
READ MORE: Putin's daughters sanctioned by UK and EU
This will include drones capable of loitering in the sky until directed to their target.
In a previous appeal to Nato, the Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba asked nations to send “weapons, weapons, weapons” including armoured vehicles.
Over the last few days, the Ukrainian president has been visited by a number of international leaders including European Commission president Ursula Von Der Leyen.
An image of the meeting between Mr Johnson and Mr Zelensky was shared on social media by the Ukrainian embassy in London.
Surprise 😉 pic.twitter.com/AWa5RjYosD
— Embassy of Ukraine to the UK (@UkrEmbLondon) April 9, 2022
In his latest address to the nation, Mr Zelensky called on the international community to hold to account Russian forces who carried out a missile strike on a crowded railway station, killing at least 52 people.
The station at Kramatorsk was packed with women and children trying to flee west before the Russian advance arrives, when the missile hit on Friday.
“All world efforts will be directed to establish every minute of who did what, who gave what orders, where the missile came from, who transported it, who gave the command and how this strike was agreed,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
The Kremlin has denied responsibility for the attack, but western officials believe it was probably a Russian Tochka-U missile, which Nato refers to as a SS-21, which was fired indiscriminately towards the town centre.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel