UK Defense Minister John Healey announced today that the UK would deliver “at least 120,000 drones for Ukraine this year and driving growth and jobs across the UK,” the largest such package ever supplied by the UK, according to the Ministry of Defense. Deliveries already started this month of all types of drones, from long-range strike drones to intelligence and reconnaissance drones, logistics drones and maritime capabilities, “all battle-proven on Ukraine’s frontline.”
“With eyes on the Middle East in recent weeks, Putin wants us to be distracted, but Ukrainians continue to fight with huge courage and nothing will distract us from continuing to stand with them for as long as it takes to secure peace,” Healey intoned.
The Defense Ministry statement flaunts, once again, that the UK is the driver of NATO’s war against Russia, using Ukraine as its pawn. The drone flood “follows the new world-leading defense partnership, agreed last month, that will see the UK and Ukraine work together to boost global defensive capability against the proliferation of low cost, high tech military hardware, including drones,” it reports. It likewise reported that Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves was to announce further monetary support for Ukraine today at the Annual IMF-World Bank Spring conference in Washington DC.
The announcement came as Healey headed to Germany, to co-chair the 34th meeting of the so-called Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Berlin, along with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Reports are that Germany and other European countries also committed to deepen their participation in the Ukraine war against Russia. U.S. War Secretary Pete “Crusader” Hegseth sent his Under Secretary for Policy Elbridge Colby to participate.
The Western media now reporting that a barrage of Russian drone and missiles strikes on six areas of Ukraine between April 13 and 15, including its port in Odessa, demonstrates that more Western intervention to support Ukraine is required, have given little attention to the escalating Ukrainian drone attacks on critical infrastructure deep inside Russia over the past month and a half. The leading focus of Ukraine’s attacks were on the oil export facilities in its Primorsk and Ust-Luga in the Gulf of Finland (approximately 40% of Russia’s oil exports leave through these two ports) plus refineries in southern Russia in the Novorossiysk and Krasnodar area. A second focus has been on destroying Russia’s air defense systems in Crimea, the new Russian territories in Novorossiya, and Russian regions bordering Ukraine.
The effect of these Ukrainian strikes do not just hit Russia; the International Energy Agency (IEA), in its latest monthly report on April 14, warned that India could face disruptions in its refining operations, because 80% of the oil it imports from Russia—which has increased in recent months again—goes through those three ports which Ukraine has been repeatedly striking.
