Prime Minister echoes words of Winston Churchill as he commends Ukrainian resistance
Mr Johnson rolls out £300 million package to support Ukrainian military during Ukraine's 'finest hour'
Last updated 29th May 2022
Boris Johnson has commended Ukrainian resistance.
The prime minister refers to this period as Ukraine's "finest hour" in an address to the parliament in Kyiv.
This follows after Mr Johnson's unannounced visit to the Ukrainian capital last month, in a show of support and solidarity with president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Military support
In a speech by video link to the Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday, the Prime Minister will echo the words of Winston Churchill as he sets out a new £300 million package of support for the Ukrainian military.
Downing Street said it will include electronic warfare equipment, a counter battery radar system, GPS jamming equipment and thousands of night vision devices, as Russia's offensive in the Donbas region continues.
"When my country faced the threat of invasion during the Second World War, our Parliament, like yours, continued to meet throughout the conflict, and the British people showed such unity and resolve that we remember our time of greatest peril as our finest hour," Mr Johnson is expected to say.
“Finest hour” was a term used by Winston Churchill
In 1940, following the fall of France, Mr Churchill sought to rally Britons to resist the Nazis - telling the country that it would be remembered as their "finest hour"
The latest military support package comes after ministers updated Parliament last week on plans to send sophisticated long-range Brimstone missiles and Stormer air defence vehicles.
In addition, the UK is to supply heavy lift aerial drones to provide logistical support to Ukrainian forces which have become isolated.
Protection and evacuation of Ukrainians
Downing Street said it is also sending more than a dozen new specialised Toyota Land Cruisers to protect civilian officials in eastern Ukraine and to evacuate civilians from frontline areas, following a request from the Ukrainian government.
It comes as a senior US official warned Russia was planning to annex large portions of eastern Ukraine and recognise the southern city of Kherson as an independent republic.
Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said the suspected plan was "straight out of the Kremlin's playbook".
He said the US and other allies had information Moscow was planning "sham referenda" in the the separatist-held "people's republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk in an attempt to add "a veneer of democratic or electoral legitimacy".
"Such sham referenda, fabricated votes will not be considered legitimate, nor will any attempts to annex additional Ukrainian territory," he said.
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