Prime minister Boris Johnson has said that Britain will do all it can to get more arms to the Ukrainian forces as they resist the Russian invasion.
Mr Johnson spoke to president Volodymyr Zelensky again on Sunday, with Ukraine’s head of the state informing him the next 24 hours are “crucial”.
Delegations from Ukraine and Russia are due to meet on Monday at the border with Belarus “without a precondition”.
It comes after Russia’s president Vladimir Putin made a dramatic announcement of putting the country’s nuclear forces on heightened alert.
Dismissing the threat, Mr Johnson said that it was a “distraction” from the failures of his army to breakthrough in Ukraine.
“What’s actually happening is that they (the Ukrainians) are fighting back perhaps with more effect, with more resistance, than the Kremlin had bargained for,” Mr Johnson said. “This is a disastrous misbegotten venture by President Putin.”
Meanwhile, the government has pledged to intensify a crackdown on Russia’s “dirty money” by introducing the Economic Crime Bill to parliament on Monday.
“We are going faster and harder to tear back the facade that those supporting Putin’s campaign of destruction have been hiding behind for so long,” said Mr Johnson.
