LONDON (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addressed British government ministers on Friday, a rare appearance by a foreign leader at a cabinet meeting that new Prime Minister Keir Starmer hopes will underline London’s support for Kyiv.
A day after hosting a forum of European leaders at Blenheim Palace, Starmer pressed on with his bid to raise Britain’s role in international affairs by inviting Zelenskiy to address his cabinet of top ministers. The last foreign leader to do so was U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1997, Starmer’s office said.
Welcomed to the meeting by a standing ovation and applause from British ministers, Zelenskiy renewed his call for Western allies to allow long-range strikes on Russia, saying Britain should try to convince its partners to remove the limits on their use.
“Right now we are missing the main answer to this question and that is our long-range capability,” Zelenskiy said at the beginning of the meeting in Downing Street. “Please convince the other partners to remove the limits.”
NATO members have taken different approaches to how Ukraine can use weapons they donate. Some have made clear Kyiv can use them to strike targets inside Russia while the United States has taken a narrower approach, allowing its weapons to be used only just inside Russia’s border against targets supporting Russian military operations in Ukraine.
Starmer, who met Zelenskiy separately for 35 minutes before a wider bilateral with officials, told Zelenskiy that Britain would speed up delivery of aid to Ukraine.
His defence minister said earlier this month that the deliveries promised by the former Conservative government would be delivered within 100 days.
“Ukraine is, and always will be, at the heart of this government’s agenda and so it is only fitting that President Zelenskiy will make a historic address to my cabinet,” Starmer had said in a statement before the meeting.
Britain has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and Starmer swiftly reaffirmed London’s commitment to Kyiv after winning a landslide election earlier this month, telling Zelenskiy at NATO that despite the change of government, there would be “no change of approach”.
He said on Thursday that Britain would pursue a new plan to try to disrupt Russia’s attempts to evade shipping sanctions. On Thursday, Britain announced sanctions on 11 vessels used to transport Russian oil.
He also unveiled the Defence Export Support Treaty, to be signed by defence ministers, that will enable Ukraine to draw on 3.5 billion pounds ($4.5 billion) of export finance, to bolster both countries’ defence industrial bases and boost production.
($1 = 0.7708 pounds)
(Reporting by Sarah Young and Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Philippa Fletcher and Jon Boyle)
