Category: Attack on Ukraine

The statement made by Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, on 24 June 2026.

Thank you, Friedrich.

It’s a real pleasure to be here with all of you and thank you so much for your kind words, it has been my privilege to work with you on these really important issues and I am proud of the work we have done over the last two years to rebuild our relationship with our allies in Europe and around the world.

I’m proud that Britain is standing up once again for decency, respect, and the rule of law.

Last week at the G7, and thank you again Emmanuel for hosting a successful G7, we pledged our unwavering support to Ukraine and we’ve been able to echo that here today – our determination to capitalise on Ukraine’s newfound momentum.

They are increasingly able to push Russia back on the battlefield. That’s very much been the story of this year. There are clear signs that as Russia loses ground and their economy struggles, the mood in Moscow is turning against Putin’s war.

So this is a really important moment to ramp up the pressure on their economy with more sanctions and providing Ukraine with more military support.

We are committed to driving this forward and that this should be the first item on the agenda at the NATO summit in a couple of weeks time.

The second key issue at the summit must be building a more European NATO.

We’ve been making this argument for some time but now is the time at this summit to really push this argument forward.

Our aim together should be to lead a decisive strengthening of European leadership and sovereign capabilities, working of course in full coordination with the United States.

Because we know that is what it will take to keep our countries safe, deter those who would do us harm and preserve the most successful military alliance in history.

That is the big strategic challenge of the moment in the face of a clear and growing threats that we face and we are all playing our full part.

The UK is ready to implement the largest increase in defence funding since the cold war. We’ve already taken steps last year to that end and we’ll take further steps and we’re going further, working to deliver our defence investment plan ahead of the NATO summit, not just to increase how much we spend on defence but to completely overhaul how we spend it to learn the lessons of Ukraine and to ensure that we’re ready to meet the threats of today and of tomorrow.

And look, one final point, it is clear that this renewal of European defence must be fuelled by a generational shift in European industrial cooperation.

The reality of modern warfare is that as well as outmanoeuvring the enemy, we must be able to out-innovate and out-produce them as well.

More than ever, economic and technological power is the basis for military power and so we must harness this moment to boost our cooperation and at the same time boost jobs, growth and opportunity for all of our people for many years to come.

Thank you.

The comments made by Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, on 17 June 2026.

Those who seek to evade our sanctions regime and support Putin’s cronies should be in no doubt, we will come after you.

It is vital we support Ukraine and continue to ramp up pressure on Russia, as every pound flowing into Putin’s war chest is being used to fuel conflict in Europe and undermine our security.

The comments made by Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, on 16 June 2026.

These sanctions target the vessels, the money and the actors propping up Russia’s war economy, and in turn, threatening European security.

Working with our G7 allies, we will continue to increase the pressure in Putin and his circle of collaborators until Russia’s war machine is brought to a halt and peace returns to our continent.

The statement made by Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, on 29 May 2026.

Last night a Russian drone entered Romanian airspace and hit a residential building, injuring civilians. This is a serious violation of NATO airspace. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure threatens the security of our entire continent. The UK unreservedly condemns such strikes. 

Time and again, Russia has shown it has no regard for civilian life, for international law, or for the sovereignty of its neighbours. That must not be allowed to stand.

We stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine, with Romania, and with all our NATO allies in the face of continued Russian aggression.

The statement made by Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, on 24 February 2026.

Good morning, colleagues. And before we get into our usual business today, I just wanted to say a few words to mark the four years of the conflict in Ukraine. That’s four years of Putin aggression. Four long years and four long years of suffering in Ukraine. And, you will have your own images and memories of that suffering.

I’ve got three etched in my mind. The first is in the early days when I went to Kyiv after conflict broke out, I went to Bucha, which is just outside Kyiv, and saw for myself the roads and the ditches in which Ukrainian civilians were handcuffed with their hands behind their back, blindfolded and shot in the head and the bodies left in the road.

I’d seen the images on film, but I went to see for myself the actual place and talked to the communities there. It was their families. It was their brothers and sisters. It was their communities. And they were left, as they described to me, to pick up the bodies, put them in shopping trolleys and take them to the local church where they put them in a mass grave.

The second etched in my memory was last year when I went to one of the busiest hospitals in Kyiv and saw for myself the incredibly awful burns on some of those who had returned from the frontline, the like of which I’d never seen in my life before. And at the same time, I went to a primary school to meet children who were five, six, seven years old, and had lost both their parents to the conflict.

There will be many examples, including the recent attacks on the energy system, when was -18 degrees and left people freezing in their homes. But that is the suffering inflicted by the aggression of Putin. My message to you, the Cabinet, and to the country today, as we mark this four years, is that we stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.

I wanted also to pay tribute to the incredible resilience of the Ukrainians. And it is incredible resilience. When this conflict broke out four years ago, it was assumed it would be a matter of weeks before Putin took the whole of Ukraine. That’s what everybody believed to be the case. Four years later, the Ukrainians are holding out against that aggression. Holding out on the front line where the circumstances are extremely challenging, but also holding out in the civilian life, where every day Ukrainians get up and go to work as a sign of resilience and defiance of the aggression.

And, we must defeat the falsehood that Russia is winning. Because if you take the last year alone, Russia took 0.8%, of land in Ukraine at a terrible cost to themselves of half a million losses. So we pay tribute to the resilience of Ukrainians. We all want a just and lasting peace. And that is what we’re all working so hard for.

It must be just. And it must be lasting. That’s why we set up a coalition of the willing a year ago, to do the work that was necessary on security guarantees. And I’m chairing a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing, immediately after this Cabinet to try and take that work further forward. But let’s be clear in terms of getting to that just and lasting peace, it is Putin who is standing in the way.

Zelenskyy has shown willing. He’s taken the lead. It is Putin who is standing in the way. And that’s why we must always double down on our support for Ukraine. That means capability. It means resource. It means more sanctions. And today, I’m pleased that we’re announcing the biggest package since 2022. In terms of sanctions package. That’s 300 Russian energy companies that are being targeted.

And we’re doing a lot more work on the shadow fleet, which is essential in terms of weakening the ability of Russia to continue with this aggression.

And then finally this, because this is not a remote conflict a long way away from the United Kingdom. It’s about us on so many levels. It’s about our values of freedom, democracy, and the right of a country to decide for itself what it does, which is democracy and sovereignty.

It has already impacted us over and above the work we’ve done on capability, resource sanctions, etc., because it has hit every family with the cost of living. Energy prices doubled at the beginning of this conflict. They’re still 40% higher than they were before the conflict. And so every family is feeling this, and how and when this conflict ends is going to affect everybody in the United Kingdom, for a very long time, which is why it’s so important that we make sure that there’s a just and lasting peace.

And Ukraine is very much the frontline of our freedom, but we need to bear that in mind as we lost four years since the outbreak of this conflict. Thank you, colleagues.