British arms and military vehicles could be manufactured in Ukraine under license, easing the country’s dependence on supplies of arms from Western allies, The Telegraph reported on Sunday.
The Telegraph said British defense industry executives had traveled to Kyiv to discuss plans to set up joint ventures to manufacture weapons and vehicles locally.
Manufacturers from other European countries were also in discussions with Ukraine, it said, citing one executive saying there was a race to put Britain “at the front of the queue”.
The Telegraph also reported that any joint venture between a defense manufacturer and Ukraine would probably need British government approval, and such a move would further antagonize Moscow. The media office of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declined to comment on the report.
The news came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to London and Paris last week to appeal for more Western arms.
Sunak told him that “nothing is off the table” when it comes to supplying Ukraine with jets to fight Russia, after announcing a plan to start training Ukrainian pilots to fly NATO-standard fighter jets.
Western countries, however, have so far stopped short of providing jets or weapons that can strike deep inside Russia.
Any move from Ukraine’s allies to send fighter jets to Ukraine would have to be a “joint decision”, Polish President Andrzej Duda told the BBC in an interview on Saturday.
“A decision today to donate any kind of jets, any F-16s, to donate them outside Poland is a very serious decision. And it’s not an easy one for us to take,” Duda said, explaining that Poland has a very limited number of jets.
Warning of consequences
The Russian state news agency TASS cited Russia’s embassy in London warning that any delivery of British fighter jets to Ukraine would have serious military and political ramifications.
On the battlefield over the weekend, Russian forces maintained a high tempo of rocket attacks across the front lines of the eastern Donetsk region.
Moscow’s troops carried out 23 attacks using rocket launchers over the course of 24 hours into Sunday evening, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has “highly praised the fighting efforts by marines during the special military operation”, as seen on the Moscow. Kremlin. Putin television program.
Separately, the United States embassy in Moscow has urged its citizens to leave Russia “immediately” due to a slew of security risks that include possible forced enlistment into the Russian army.
“US citizens residing or traveling in Russia should depart immediately,” the embassy said on Sunday.
The embassy also warned that US citizens are at risk of harassment and singling out for detention by Russian law enforcement.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has yet to respond to the travel advisory.
