What does Russias war in Ukraine mean for UK?

The UK stands with Ukraine, its democratically-elected government and its brave people at this awful time. The prime minister has said that the UK is planning to send more weapons and non-lethal kit such as helmets to Ukraine. GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) urged UK businesses and organisations to “bolster their online defences”, warning that there has been a “historical pattern of cyber attacks on Ukraine with international consequences”. “Millions of companies across Britain” were warned “to prepare for a Russian cyber attack” after the government slapped sanctions on Moscow, the Daily Mail reported. Many countries have already raced to impose other sanctions on Moscow following the unprovoked attack on Ukraine.

This shift in approach to resourcing Russia and Ukraine is noticeable, and the UK can consider its response to the war so far a diplomatic success. As cars queued on Ukraine's border with Moldova, the country's pro-EU president, Maia Sandu said she was declaring a state of emergency and was prepared to give help to tens of thousands of Ukrainians. "This renewed attack is a grave violation of international law, including the UN Charter," Nato said.

Ukraine: Boris Johnson warns Russian invasion would be disastrous

Boris Pistorius, the German defence minister, gave an interview last week suggesting that while a Russian attack was not likely for now “our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible”. Europe, he added, was “dealing with a military threat situation … that has not existed for 30 years”. The Russian defence ministry said that missiles fired from across the border brought down the transport plane,  but Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said that Kyiv had no verifiable information about who was on the plane.

Cuts have already seen the size of the British Army fall from more than 100,000 in 2010 to around 73,000 now. Gen Sanders said that within the next three years the British Army needed to be 120,000 strong with the addition of reserves. But he said even that is not enough - so the Army should be designed to expand rapidly "to enable the first echelon, resource the second echelon, and train and equip the citizen army that must follow". The size of its active armed forces is only 19,000 personnel, but it can call on another 238,000 reserves. But it boosts the strength of the professional armed forces, which is often relatively small.

Military grade firearms increasingly available to terrorists in Europe - report

It also wants Nato to withdraw its forces from most Eastern European countries. It is called self-determination, and perhaps the most important aspect of this principle is that borders cannot be changed by invading armies.

• Construction on a new housing facility for American forces working on the site will begin in June.
• Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko plays down their significance, saying they are “normal exercises”.
• The Russian civil aviation regulator today announced a ban on British airlines landing at Russian airports due to “the unfriendly decisions by the UK aviation authorities”, the BBC reported.

Over the Christmas period, Russia launched hundreds of missile and drone strikes across cities in Ukraine including Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Lviv. This culminated on 29 December, when Russian unleashed its largest aerial assault against Ukraine since the war began. It killed at least 41 civilians, including a 15-year-old boy, wounded hundreds, and caused significant damage to civilian infrastructure, including a maternity hospital. It is regrettable - and sadly predictable - that we must gather today to condemn Russia’s latest wave of aerial attacks against the Ukrainian people.

Belarus allowed Russian troops to enter its country to access Ukraine's northern border as part of the invasion.  https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-many-russian-soldiers-have-died.html  considers the alliance as a threat, and is demanding legal guarantees that it will not expand further east, including into Ukraine. But the US has said the issue at stake is Russian aggression, not Nato expansion. Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg criticised Russia's "reckless" attack on Ukraine and said despite weeks of tireless international diplomacy, Russia had chosen "the path of aggression". Writing on Twitter, he added the US and its allies and partners would impose "severe sanctions on Russia" and continue to provide support to Ukraine and its people.

These took place far away from the front lines of Russia’s war, in civilian populated areas. The intensity, regularity and indiscriminate nature of Russia’s attacks may violate international humanitarian law, is extremely concerning and must stop. According to reports, Russian missiles on Kyiv and Kharkiv killed at least  18 people and injured over one hundred.

Hungary previously said it would block further financial aid to Ukraine, but this morning suggested it was ready to compromise after the EU reportedly drew up plans to hit Budapest's economy. "The nightmare scenario would be that the states close to Russia double down on aid to Ukraine while those farther west decide to force a deal on Putin's terms. Then Europe itself could fracture," he says. However, he warned of "chaos" if European states do not show enough unity and determination. He says Europe is rich enough to do so if it has the political will, pointing to a recent report from the Estonian Ministry of Defence suggesting that committing 0.25% of GDP annually towards Ukraine would provide "more than sufficient resources". A prominent war expert says the US is on the verge of lessening its support for, or even withdrawing from, NATO - with potentially catastrophic consequences for Europe. "The document referred to in the Financial Times article is a background note written by the secretariat of the council under its own responsibility which describes the current status of the Hungarian economy," the statement by the senior EU official said.

That means extremely difficult choices for a Treasury gearing up for retrenchment and conscious that protecting military budgets means cuts would fall even more heavily on public services, themselves in desperate need of more investment. As prime minister Boris Johnson promised to increase defence spending from an existing 2% to 2.5% of GDP; his successor Liz Truss went further by committing to 3%. The new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is tasked with plotting the UK’s course out of the crisis. Even with prices falling faster than expected, next winter still looks challenging – and energy is likely to remain front and centre of the political agenda well beyond that. Instead it has strengthened political consensus that domestic renewables offer the cheapest and most secure form of energy.

If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at Please include your name, age and location with any submission. Mr Murayev called the claims "stupid" in an interview with Reuters news agency. On Sunday, the UK Foreign Office accused Mr Putin of planning to install a pro-Moscow figure to lead Ukraine's government, naming former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev as a possible candidate. Earlier, No 10 said there were no plans to send British combat troops to defend Ukraine, however. US President Joe Biden held a video conference with EU leaders, the Nato secretary general and Mr Johnson on Monday evening. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace branded Russia's actions "naked aggression against a democratic country" and said no one had been fooled by the Kremlin's "false flags and fake narratives".

• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the run-up to our March 2022 Economic and fiscal outlook represented a significant adverse shock, primarily via a sharp rise in gas and oil prices.
• Russian forces have suffered heavy personnel and armoured vehicle losses, frequently caused by Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicle munitions.
• Calls have recently come from senior figures on both sides of the Atlantic for the UK to be prepared in case of a potential war between Nato forces and Russia.
• However, Russian forces have suffered heavy personnel and armoured vehicle losses, frequently caused by Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicle munitions.

This comes as the US president has been pressing Congress to embrace a bipartisan Senate deal to pair border enforcement measures with aid for Ukraine. Some Republicans have set a deal on border security as a condition for further Ukraine aid. Balazs Orban, chief political aide to the prime minister, said Hungary sent a proposal to the EU over the weekend showing it was open to using the budget for the aid package if other "caveats" were added. We have not taken explicit account of the impact on inflation, or on the wider economy, of price rises of other commodities of which Russia and Ukraine are also major global producers such as wheat, nickel, and palladium. Some global wheat prices have risen by more than 40 per cent this year and food and non-alcoholic beverages comprise 11.5 per cent of the CPI basket.

• Putin already sent in “peacekeeping troops” to two separatist regions of Ukraine on Monday – prompting the West to issue a string of sanctions against Russia – but went even further early Thursday morning when he declared war on Ukraine.
• The UK's defence secretary has also warned that we need to be prepared for a war.
• A Ukrainian presidential adviser said that more than 40 soldiers had died and dozens more were wounded, but this has not been independently confirmed.
• Refusal can mean a jail sentence, though there is the option of civilian service out of uniform too.

The Prime Minister said the UK was one of the first countries in Europe to send defensive weapons to help Ukraine. Mr Johnson said Russian President Vladimir Putin has unleashed a "tidal wave of violence" against Ukraine. The Foreign Office has warned against all travel to Crimea and two areas of eastern Ukraine, Donetsk oblast and Luhansk oblast. Russia has seized Ukrainian territory before, when it annexed Crimea in 2014, following fierce protests in Ukraine that toppled the country's pro-Russian president. Russian forces seized control of Crimea before the territory voted to join Russia in a referendum the West and Ukraine deemed illegal.