Wes Streeting speaks exclusively to ITV News on his first visit to Ukraine.
Britain’s new defence secretary has said Vladimir Putin is losing the war in Ukraine and the UK will stand with Ukraine “until they prevail”.
Wes Streeting’s visit to Kyiv on Wednesday came just hours after a wave of Russian ballistic missile and drone attacks on the city left 17 people dead and 44 injured.
ITV News travelled to Kyiv with the defence secretary in what is the first visit to Ukraine by a minister from Andy Burnham’s government.
“The prime minister and I both felt it was important to demonstrate very early on the unwavering and unequivocal support that this government has for Ukraine,” Streeting said.
Despite the threat to civilian life, Streeting said he felt no fear about visiting a warzone for the first time.
“I’m conscious that we are going to a capital city that in recent days, let alone recent years, has been suffering heavy bombardment,” he said.
Overnight into Wednesday, Russia fired 24 ballistic missiles and 115 drones at Ukrainian civilian warehouses, a train station and a brewing company.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said attacks targeted sites “with no connection to the war”.
July marked the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilian casualties since the war began, according to the Kyiv government.
The rate and scale of Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities has been exacerbated by a shortage of missile defence systems.
“What I’m going to do is to understand what more we can do to support Ukraine through what will be a challenging winter, but also beyond, because ultimately it’s in our national interest as well as, you know, the I think the collective and moral good for Ukraine to win,” Streeting said.
Both Russia and Ukraine do not publish figures for military casualties caused by the war, but the loss of life on the Russian side is thought to be in the hundreds of thousands.
The defence secretary said Putin was responsible for the “outrageous and unprovoked invasion” of Ukraine and the loss of Russian life.
“The thing I cannot comprehend is how Russia’s leader can place so little value on the lives of his own people, who he is sending into this futile war. And it is a war he is losing,” he said.
Streeting said he “wouldn’t understate the level of US support” and said that the UK was continually working with allies to increase assistance in the region.
He said: “I actually think the US have been impressed by the way in which the Ukrainians have conducted themselves, and particularly defense innovation, and the way in which this year in particular has borne out for the Ukrainian front.
“I wouldn’t understate the level of of US support, of course, we’re always working to mobilise more support from allies.
“And we also recognise the fact that with the war in Iran, the US is committed there, but we’ve got a huge coalition of support for Ukraine, a wide range of capability across that coalition.”
The defence secretary also met with the Ukrainian president during his visit.
Streeting, who resigned from Keir Starmer’s government after May’s local elections, is the fifth UK defence secretary to visit Ukraine since the war began almost four and a half years ago.
Despite the political turbulence in British politics, Streeting believes there remains an “enormous degree of cross-party unity” and support for Ukraine has “united the country”.
“I’m proud that to this day, we enjoy the same support from the Conservative opposition that we provided to the Conservative government when we were the Labour opposition,” said the defence secretary.
The UK has been a firm backer of Ukraine since the start of the war in 2022, providing military, diplomatic and humanitarian support to the country.
“We’re with Ukraine until they win,” Streeting said.
“This is a fight that we’re invested in because they are fighting for the very freedom and democracy that we cherish ourselves.”
It follows Zelenskyy’s visit to the UK last week, where he became the first international leader Burnham hosted.
The pair met at a naval base in Portsmouth where Burnham reiterated the UK’s support for Ukraine and announced a sharing of intellectual property behind the UK’s new “Stone Cloak” electronic warfare system.
The tablet-sized device is designed to block Russian detection of any drones it is fitted to.
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