London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Oct 10, 2025

Boris Johnson pledges to send more arms during surprise visit to Kyiv

UK to send military vehicles and missiles as prime minister hails Zelenskiy’s heroism

Boris Johnson made a surprise trip to Kyiv yesterday to meet the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, pledging a major new infusion of British arms and financial aid to help counter the expected deadly new phase in Russia’s military offensive.

After the meeting, the prime minister said: “Ukraine has defied the odds and pushed back Russian forces from the gates of Kyiv, achieving the greatest feat of arms of the 21st century.

“It is because of president Zelenskiy’s resolute leadership and the invincible heroism and courage of the Ukrainian people that Putin’s monstrous aims are being thwarted. I made clear today that the United Kingdom stands unwaveringly with them in this ongoing fight, and we are in it for the long run.

“We are stepping up our own military and economic support and convening a global alliance to bring this tragedy to an end, and ensure Ukraine survives and thrives as a free and sovereign nation.”

Last night No 10 said Britain would send 120 armoured vehicles and new Harpoon anti-ship missile systems to Ukraine. The missiles can do serious damage to Russian warships and could be used to tackle the Russian navy siege of Black Sea ports. The UK pledged £100m in military assistance last week, including another 800 anti-tank missiles, more anti-aircraft weapons, “suicide drones”, which hover over the battlefield before attacking a target, and helmets, body armour and night-vision goggles.

Johnson has been praised by Zelenskiy, who contrasts the fulfilment of a promise to deliver vital anti-tank weapons to its army with the more timid responses from other Nato member countries such as Germany.

A train car after a rocket attack at a train station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, on Friday that was being used for civilian evacuations.


The security situation in Ukraine’s capital has stabilised since Russia withdrew from its positions around the city on 29 March to regroup its forces and consolidate territorial gains in Ukraine’s south and east.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen also visited Ukraine’s capital on Friday, as well as the nearby town of Bucha, where overwhelming evidence suggests that civilians were raped and murdered by Russian troops.

Johnson’s visit comes a day after Zelenskiy called on western allies to provide more military aid and step up sanctions on Russia in the wake of a missile attack on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk that killed 52 people, including five children.

Russia’s defence ministry has denied responsibility for the strike, but western intelligence officials believe a Russian short-range ballistic missile was fired indiscriminately towards the town centre. At the time of the attack the station was packed with civilians who had been ordered by the Ukrainian government to evacuate the town in the face of the Russian advance from the south-east.

“I have already left Kramatorsk, because when a missile hit a school very close to my house, we were very scared,” said Sofiya Ruban, 17, who fled to the Kyiv area with her family.

“When we heard about yesterday’s airstrikes at the railway station we were shocked and very saddened.”

Russian shelling and missile attacks have intensified in several areas across eastern Ukraine as Moscow moves its “special military operation” away from toppling the government to focus on building a corridor connecting the Russian-occupied region of Crimea with Luhansk and Donetsk – also de-facto controlled by Moscow – with the Russian mainland.

The besieged city of Mariupol, together with the southern city of Mykolaiv, which has faced significant shelling, are major Kremlin targets, the UK Ministry of Defence has said.

With trains not running out of Kramatorsk on Saturday, panicked residents boarded buses or looked for other ways to get out, fearing the kind of unrelenting assaults and occupations by Russian invaders that delivered food shortages, demolished buildings and death to other cities in Ukraine.

Zelenskiy called the station attack the latest example of war crimes by Russian forces and said it should motivate the west to do more to help his country defend itself.

“All world efforts will be directed to establish every minute of who did what, who gave what orders, where the missile came from, who transported it, who gave the command and how this strike was agreed,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

In response to the shelling of Kramatorsk, a curfew in the southern port city of Odesa went into effect on Saturday evening until Monday evening.

Ten humanitarian corridors to evacuate people from embattled areas across the country had been agreed on Saturday, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, but by nightfall it was unclear whether civilians had been able to make it to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Several attempts to evacuate 150,000 people still in Mariupol, which has been under constant fire since 24 February, and bring in vital provisions such as food and medicine, have ended in failure after Russian shelling of safe routes. Two UN agencies also called for urgent action to help an estimated 1,000 seafarers stranded in Ukrainian ports and waters with dwindling supplies.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War said that Ukrainian forces retain control of defensive positions in eastern and south-western Mariupol, and Russian forces are continuing to attempt to redeploy units in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces are “unlikely to enable a Russian breakthrough and face poor morale”, ISW said.

Last week, Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, said the country had “significant losses of troops and it’s a huge tragedy for us”.

The conflict may be in danger of becoming a gruelling war of attrition. The Pentagon estimates that Russia’s combat power is between 80% and 85% of pre-invasion levels.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
×