Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be hosted by the prime minister at a meeting of the cabinet on Friday, as he becomes the first foreign leader to address the UK’s top ministerial team since 1997.
Zelenskyy, who is set to become the first official visitor to Downing Street during Keir Starmer’s tenure as PM, will meet and brief the new cabinet about the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine.
He is expected to stress the need to ramp up Europe’s defence industrial base to outpace the Russian threat.
The last foreign leader to address the cabinet in person was president Clinton in 1997. The former German chancellor, Angela Merkel, addressed a virtual meeting of the cabinet in July 2021.
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The meeting comes after the launch of a “Call to Action” by European leaders, in a bid to target the so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers that Russia uses to skirt international sanctions.
The shadow fleet is said to make up around 600 vessels and carry approximately 1.7 million barrels of oil per day, generating significant funds to fuel Russia’s war machine.
It was reported earlier this month that a British business had traded Russian liquefied natural gas by operating an “unusual ship.”
Hosting his first foreign leader in No 10 as PM, Keir Starmer is expected to tell Zelenskyy that the UK will go further in the coming months to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.
The two leaders are also expected to agree a Defence Export Support Treaty, which will be signed by defence ministers, to bolster the UK’s and Ukraine’s defence industrial bases and increase military hardware and weaponry production.
The treaty will enable Ukraine to draw on £3.5 billion of export finance and allow Ukrainian and UK defence companies to invest in further military capabilities.
The export finance is in addition to the £3 billon a year of UK support, announced by the prime minister at the recent NATO summit in Washington.
Commenting ahead of President Zelenskyy’s visit, prime minister Keir Starmer said: “Ukraine is, and always will be, at the heart of this government’s agenda and so it is only fitting that President Zelenskyy will make a historic address to my Cabinet.
“Russia’s incremental gains on the battlefield are nothing compared with the collective international support for Ukraine, or the strength of ties between our people.
“And alongside our European partners, we have sent a clear message to those enabling Putin’s attempts to evade sanctions: we will not allow Russia’s shadow fleet, and the dirty money it generates, to flow freely through European waters and put our security at risk.”
Speaking at the 47-member European Political Community summit at Blenheim Palace on Thursday, Zelenskyy urged European leaders to channel Winston Churchill’s “bravery” in the fight against the Russian aggression and declared that Putin has sacrificed “tens of thousands of his citizens but has achieved nothing significant”.
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