Russia-Ukraine war – live: Sunak visits Zelensky as UK pledges thousands of drones to Kyiv

The prime minister has arrived in Ukraine’s capital for his surprise visit on Friday morning.

Rishi Sunak will meet president Volodymyr Zelensky to announce a major new package of military aid to Ukraine. Mr Sunak was also pictured meeting Ukrainian emergency service staff upon his arrival in Kyiv.

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday called a US plan to confiscate up to $300 billion in frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine “21st century piracy” and said Moscow would retaliate harshly if it happened.

A Bloomberg report published on Wednesday said that US President Joe Biden’s administration was backing legislation that would allow it to seize some frozen Russian assets in order to help rebuild Ukraine, parts of which lie in ruins after Moscow sent its army into its neighbour in February 2022.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who accused Washington of trying to strong-arm the European union into signing up to the same asset confiscation plan, said Moscow would respond harshly if its assets were stolen.

“Theft of state, private and public property has become a trademark of the Anglo-Saxons,” Zakharova told a news briefing.

“Washington (and) London have been doing it for decades. Before that it was called piracy, but then it was legalised. Now it is the piracy of the 21st century in my opinion.”

“Retaliatory measures will be taken and they will be such that they will be seen and felt. They will be painful,” she said.

A black bear who survived starvation and Russian missiles in an abandoned Ukrainian zoo has been settling into his new home in Scotland.

Yampil, named after the village he was found in, was one of the last surviving animals at the zoo abandoned ahead of the onslaught of the Russian invasion.

The Asiatic black bear was transported to the Five Sisters Zoo in West Calder, West Lothian arriving early on Friday morning.

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Armed Forces Minister James Heappey was questioned about why the UK had not offered a multi-year funding commitment for Ukraine.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is £2.5 billion that effectively is the funding for tactical activity in this next year, follows £2.3 billion last year and the £2.3 billion the year before.

“These capability coalitions, there are a number of them led by different countries, but the ones that the UK are leading is principally in the maritime domain.

“They are exactly the multi-year capability development programmes that give the Ukrainians that certainty around the development of their capabilities over the arc of a decade, and equally importantly, give (Vladimir) Putin the certainty that there is no loss in patience and commitment from their (Ukraine’s) Western supporters.”

Rishi Sunak has been pictured on a train travelling through Ukraine on his way to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky.

His surprise visit comes after announcing a major new package of £2.5 billion in military aid to the country over the coming year.

Shadow defence secretary John Healey has given Labour’s backing for the new funding for Ukraine.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, he said: “The UK is united in support of Ukraine and against Russian aggression.

“Labour fully backs this new military funding for Ukraine – and has been pushing ministers since the autumn to confirm 2024 military funding.

“This is vital support for Kyiv’s fight against (Vladimir) Putin’s illegal invasion.

“There may be a change in government to Labour this year, but there will be no change in Britain’s resolve to stand with Ukraine, confront Russian aggression and pursue Putin for his war crimes”

The UK has announced it will provide £2.5 billion in military aid to the country over the coming year.

Number 10 said that the £2.5 billion in funding would cover long-range missiles, air defence, artillery ammunition and maritime security, with the support an increase of £200 million on the last two years.

Around £200 million will also be spent on a push to procure and produce thousands of military drones, which the Government said was the largest delivery of drones to Ukraine from any nation – most of which are expected to be manufactured in the UK.

Rishi Sunak is making a surprise visit to Ukraine to meet Volodymyr Zelensky, as the UK announced it will provide £2.5 billion in military aid to the country over the coming year.

The Ukraine visit comes as the Mr Zelensky pushes allies in the West to give his country more support to fight back against Russian forces, amid fears interest in the war is flagging.

The PM and Mr Zelensky will use the one-day visit to sign a new UK-Ukraine Agreement on Security Cooperation, after G7 countries agreed at last year’s Nato summit to sign bilateral security assurances with the country.

It comes just hours after the prime minister authorised strikes against Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, as Britain joined the US in Red Sea military action.

A senior ally of President Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday that any Ukrainian attacks on missile launch sites inside Russia with arms supplied by the United States and its allies would risk a nuclear response from Moscow.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said that some Ukrainian military commanders were considering hitting missile launch sites inside Russia with Western-supplied long-range missiles.

He did not name the commanders or disclose more details of the alleged plan and there was no immediate reaction from Ukraine to his threat.

“What does this mean? It means only one thing – they risk running into the action of paragraph 19 of the fundamentals of Russia’s state policy in the field of nuclear deterrence,” Medvedev wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

“This should be remembered,” Medvedev said.

Paragraph nineteen of Russia’s 2020 nuclear doctrine sets out the conditions under which a Russian president would consider using a nuclear weapon. Medvedev made specific mention of point “g” of paragraph nineteen which deals with the nuclear response to a conventional weapons attack.

Ukraine and Switzerland will host around 120 national security advisors on Sunday in the Swiss resort town of Davos, Switzerland’s foreign affairs department said, the latest in a series of meetings to rally support for Ukraine’s peace plan.

The meeting, taking place in the run up to the World Economic Forum which begins the following day, is the fourth of its kind and the biggest yet, following previous gatherings in Copenhagen, Jeddah and most recently in Malta in October.

Officials had hoped the meeting in Malta would lead to the setting of a date for a global peace summit to build a coalition of support for Ukraine’s 10-point peace plan, drafted by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in December 2022.

However, co-chairs limited themselves at the time to a joint statement referring to the participants’ commitment to just and lasting peace.

A top Kyiv official told Reuters in November that a summit to begin implementing the plan “might” take place in February 2024, with Ukraine fearing the war in Gaza is making it harder to win over diplomatic support for its blueprint for peace.

Zelenskiy’s plan includes calls for the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops, protection of food and energy supplies, nuclear safety and the release of all prisoners.

The peace formula talks do not involve Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has occupied nearly a fifth of the country. Russia has rejected the peace “formula”, saying it would be impossible to implement.