The Guardian reports from Kyiv that the U.K.-Ukraine relationship has been going downhill since Prime Minister Keir Starmer took office in July. The main issue cited is the lack of deliveries of Storm Shadow cruise missiles despite promises from London. Starmer is yet to visit Ukraine four months after taking office (though Defense Minister John Healy traveled there the first week he was in office) and a frustrated Kyiv has said that a trip would be worthless unless Starmer committed to replenishing stocks of the sought-after long-range Storm Shadow system. “There’s no point in his coming as a tourist,” one senior figure in Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration said.
In complaining that the supply of additional missiles from its reserves of Storm Shadow has not come, even for use against targets in Crimea and other Ukrainian territories controlled by Russia since 2014, the official said: “It isn’t happening. Starmer isn’t giving us long-range weapons. The situation is not the same as when Rishi Sunak was prime minister. The relationship has got worse.”
