Britain draws up plans to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles

London  — Britain is planning to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles to help it defend its skies from Russian invasion, defence minister Ben Wallace said, stressing that the technology fell within the definition of defensive weapons.

“It is vital ... that Ukraine maintains its ability to fly and suppress Russian air attack,” Wallace told MPs.

“In response to Ukrainian requests, the government has taken the decision to explore the donation of Starstreak high-velocity man-portable anti-air missiles. We believe that this system will remain within the definition of defensive weapons, but will allow the Ukrainian force to better defend their skies.”

Wallace said the decision had been taken in principle to supply the systems, and the government was working out how to get them into Ukraine and train Ukrainian forces to use them.

The Starstreak system is made by Thales.

If confirmed, the supply would mark a significant step in Britain’s support for Ukraine. So far, Ukraine has praised Britain’s contribution of thousands of anti-tank missiles which have helped slow the Russian advance on Kyiv.

However Britain’s support has been limited to defensive weaponry.

“Everything we do is bound by the decision to supply defensive systems, and are calibrated not to escalate to a strategic level,” Wallace said.

As a member of the defence alliance Nato military alliance, Britain has rejected pleas from Ukraine to impose a no-fly zone over the country. Britain says that could mean Nato forces shooting down Russian planes, resulting in a significant escalation of the conflict.

Separately, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday Britain needed to carry out security checks on Ukrainian refugees, after facing calls to relax visa conditions for those fleeing relentless bombardment by invading Russian forces.

Unlike many countries elsewhere in Europe that have accepted Ukrainian refugees without visas, Britain has required them, and there has been widespread criticism that this procedure has been too slow and bureaucratic.

Britain has granted more than 700 visas to Ukrainians since the start of the war. By comparison, Poland, a neighbour of Ukraine, has taken in more than 1.2-million Ukrainians.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ukraine’s ambassador to London called on the British government to relax visa conditions for people in what has become the fastest and biggest flow of refugees in Europe since World War 2.

Johnson told parliament the visa checks were needed because the Kremlin had singled out Britain over its stance on the crisis in Ukraine.

“There are some people who would like to dispense with checks altogether and simply to wave people through. I do think that is irresponsible,” he said. “We are going to be as generous as we can possibly be, but we must have checks.”

Speaking to the British parliament's Home Affairs committee, Ukrainian Ambassador Vadym Prystaiko said he understood security checks were required but asked for the process to be simplified. “Most people don't have passports with them, their homes were bombed, we’re not printing passports in my embassy,” he said. “In reality, if you have a one-year-old, it is definitely not a terrorist. So you can strike them out of the list of potential terrorist risks.”

Prystaiko, who has been Ukraine’s top diplomat in Britain since 2020, said obtaining visas to Britain had been difficult even before Russia invaded, and that his wife was initially denied a visa when he was appointed.

The government has defended its stance, citing a 2018 nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in the English city of Salisbury which Britain blames on three Russian military intelligence officers who entered the country posing as tourists using fake identities.

“We know how unscrupulous (Russian President Vladimir) Putin can be in his methods,” Johnson said. “It would not be right to expose this country to unnecessary security risks and we will not do it.”

The Conservative prime minister added that he expected the number of British visas offered to refugees would rise very sharply “to in the region of the hundreds of thousands”.

Reuters