More military support for Ukraine to be announced on Friday, defence secretary says

Published

3 months ago

April 10, 2025

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More military support for Ukraine will be announced on Friday as the UK and its allies “must step up support”, the defence secretary said.

John Healey said the extra support will be announced at the 27th meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.

The group is an alliance of about 50 countries – all 32 NATO member states, including the US, and about 20 other nations – that has been supporting Ukraine by sending military equipment there since April 2022, a few weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

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Mr Healey said: “We cannot jeopardise the peace by forgetting about the war.

“The daily reality for millions of Ukrainians continues – drone attacks, missile strikes, brutal fighting on the frontline – so we must put more pressure on President Putin to end his war and we must step up support for Ukraine both in the fight and in the push for peace.

“That’s why I’m grateful that so many of you who are here today will also be here tomorrow for the meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group when we will pledge more military support to bolster Ukraine on the battlefield.”

Mr Healey and German defence minister Boris Pistorius will host the meeting the day after the UK defence secretary and his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu led 30 defence ministers from the “coalition of the willing” in Brussels.

The group, which does not include the US, was set to discuss operational plans on Thursday afternoon for a multinational peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

It will look at each nation’s capabilities and how they could be best used to support Ukraine’s long-term defence and security as part of what the Ministry of Defence called a “reassurance force”.

UK and French military chiefs discussed planning with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his military chiefs in Kyiv last weekend.

Peace negotiations are ongoing between the US and Russia, however, US officials appear to be growing increasingly impatient with the lack of progress after Donald Trump publicly suggested a month ago that Vladimir Putin wants to end the war.

Last Tuesday, the Kremlin described the latest US peace proposal as unacceptable in its current form because it does not solve the “root causes” of the conflict.

Mr Putin wants to dismantle Ukraine as an independent, functioning state and has demanded Kyiv recognise Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and other partly occupied areas and pull its forces out, as well as a pledge for Ukraine to never join NATO and to demilitarise.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Friday that Mr Trump is not “going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations” with Moscow.

Despite the apparent impasse in talks, the coalition of the willing – which does not include the US – is continuing with its plans for when peace is agreed.

The latest development in the war has seen Mr Zelenskyy say Ukraine has intelligence that there are at least 155 Chinese citizens fighting for the Russian military.

On Tuesday, Mr Zelenskyy released a video of a Chinese soldier taken by Ukrainian forces, with another captured by Ukrainian forces, he said.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian denied claims there were “many more” Chinese citizens fighting alongside Russians in Ukraine.

It came as Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the British armed forces, visited China on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Mr Healey said it was “always good thing to have military to military communications”.

The defence secretary said Sir Tony was “very firm” about the “importance of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific” and the “concern about any use of military aggression or assertiveness to pursue political ends”.

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Crypto’s path to legitimacy runs through the CARF regulation

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

10 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”