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Keir Starmer has said he believes Ukraine will win the war against Russia as he ended his final visit to the country while in office. Starmer met Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Thursday and told Sky News in an interview: “I believe Ukraine will win this war.” He added: “What they’ve shown is that it’s not just the size of your army, it’s how you fight a modern conflict. And so they are probably the most effective fighting machine in Europe.”
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Starmer’s visit came on his final full day as Labour leader, with the British leader saying the handover would not change the relationship between the two nations. “The fact that there will be a new prime minister in the United Kingdom, in the days to come, doesn’t change that dynamic at all,” he said. “The resolve of the United Kingdom remains the same, it will not waver.”
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Starmer also announced 300 million-euro funding to help deliver a squadron of 16 advanced Swedish Gripen jets to Ukraine by 2029. The Gripen aircraft can be used for air-to-air combat, ground strikes and reconnaissance missions.
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Zelenskyy defended on Thursday his decision to dismiss the country’s popular defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, and confirmed reports that relations had broken down between the ministry and the country’s top army leadership. His decision to back the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi has outraged civil society. More than 1,000 protesters gathered outside the presidential office in Kyiv on Thursday, carrying placards in support of Fedorov. Ukraine’s youthful defence minister was seen as an innovator of the country’s successful drone technology but was someone who clashed with the traditional military establishment.
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The personnel overhaul, which included replacing the prime minister, could become a test of Zelenskyy’s political authority as Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches four and a half years. Zelenskyy has remained in office under martial law because wartime elections are prohibited but has periodically reshuffled his government.
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Russian and Ukrainian attacks on civilian areas in towns and cities, killed at least 12 people on Thursday, local officials said. A Russian guided bomb attack on Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia killed three people and wounded 15. Russian missiles struck the Black Sea port of Odesa, killing two people and injuring six. Outside Kharkiv, near the Russian border, a Russian drone attack killed one person. Earlier in the day, a drone attack near the city of Kupiansk, farther east, killed three people, while one person was killed in Donetsk region.
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On the other side of the border, local officials in Belgorod Region said one person had died when Ukrainian forces shelled a settlement near the border.
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The head of the United Nations atomic agency denounced the killing of the chief engineer of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in a drone strike, which no one has claimed. Russia blamed Ukraine for this death, but Kyiv described the accusations as “baseless” and said Moscow has failed to provide evidence. The head of Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev said on Wednesday that Aleksandr Yakovlev died when “a drone belonging to the Ukrainian armed forces” hit a service vehicle near the flashpoint power station. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi “condemns the reported incident which he says represents an unacceptable attack on the plant and its management, seriously threatening nuclear safety”, the watchdog posted late on Wednesday on X.
