Ben Wallace Tells Vladimir Putin The UK Is ‘Not Going Anywhere’ In Its Support For Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has been warned that the West is “not going wherever” in its help for Ukraine.

Defence secretary Ben Wallace mentioned his message to the Russian president was that the UK was “in it for the lengthy haul”.

Talking throughout a go to to Estonia, a Nato ally which borders Russia, Wallace introduced that the federal government would additionally present 600 Brimstone missiles to Ukraine to assist it in its combat in opposition to the Russian invasion.

It comes on prime of the UK offering 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine following pleas from its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for extra navy gear from the West.

Wallace was assembly defence ministers from japanese Europe forward of an extra assembly on Friday of donor nations hosted by the US in Ramstein, Germany.

The defence secretary urged Putin to “recalculate” his ways, saying that numerous “assumptions” he had made final February had confirmed to not be true.

“When president Putin began the invasion on February 24, he made numerous assumptions,” he mentioned.

“The primary one being that Ukrainians wouldn’t combat, the second being that his superior navy, as he thought of it, would rapidly crush any resistance and that by now…he could be just about accountable for Ukraine.

“And eventually, he banked on the truth that he thought the worldwide neighborhood was fickle, that it wouldn’t stick collectively, that we wouldn’t see it via, and certainly by now, we’d have all received bored and been bullied by excessive power costs.

“Nicely, none of these have turned out to be true.

“We’re right here at the moment, we’ll be right here tomorrow.”

The defence secretary continued: “If president Putin is banking on us losing interest this yr, he’s mistaken.

“We’ll plan for this yr, and subsequent yr, and the yr after and past.

“If the message from that is one factor, it’s: ‘We’re not going wherever Mr Putin’.”