{"id":128389,"date":"2025-03-02T02:23:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T02:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-starmer-pledges-2bn-weapons-loan-to-zelensky-and-tells-him-you-have-uks-full-backing-the-independent\/"},"modified":"2025-03-02T02:23:38","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T02:23:38","slug":"ukraine-war-latest-starmer-pledges-2bn-weapons-loan-to-zelensky-and-tells-him-you-have-uks-full-backing-the-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-starmer-pledges-2bn-weapons-loan-to-zelensky-and-tells-him-you-have-uks-full-backing-the-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war latest: Starmer pledges \u00a32bn weapons loan to Zelensky and tells him: \u2018you have UK\u2019s full backing\u2019 – The Independent"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ukrainian president will meet with King Charles on Sunday ahead of a defence summit with European leaders
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Sir Keir Starmer has a \u00a32.26billion weapons package to Ukraine following his \u201cmeaningful and warm\u201d meeting <\/a>with Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a>.
Sir Keir <\/a>told<\/a> the Ukrainian president he has \u201cfull backing across the United Kingdom\u201d as the men met at No 10. Mr Zelensky told the prime minister \u201cwe count on your support\u201d.<\/a>
The Ukrainian president\u2019s meeting comes a day after his explosive White House clash<\/a> with US president Donald Trump<\/a>.
In contrast with the terse exchange in the Oval Office, the meeting between Sir Keir and the Ukrainian president appeared warm.
Mr Zelensky hailed a “meaningful and warm meeting” with Sir Keir Starmer. He said the UK and Ukraine signed a loan agreement to enhance Ukraine\u2019s defense capabilities, with repayment coming from revenues from frozen Russian assets that will fund weapons production in Ukraine.
Ukraine\u2019s finance minister said the loan was valued at \u00a32.26bn.
Mr Zelensky will also meet with King Charles<\/a> on Sunday ahead of a defence summit with European leaders in London.
The US president claimed Mr Zelensky was \u201cgambling with World War Three\u201d in a series of heated exchanges on Friday which were broadcast around the world.<\/a>
America is strong enough to survive abandoning its old allies \u2013 but if the irascible president follows through on his Oval Office warning and switches off aid to Ukraine, there will be a heavy price to pay by the entire continent, says <\/em>Mark Almond<\/em><\/strong><\/a>
Sir Keir Starmer has invited European leaders to London tomorrow for a defence summit.
Leaders from France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Turkey, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Romania have all been invited.
The presidents of the European Council, European Commission and Nato Secretary General have also been invited.
Below, we remind you of the astonishing confrontation between US president Donald Trump, his vice president JD Vance and the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
The spat, in which Mr Zelensky was insulted and abused by two figures with little regard for facts before being told to say \u201cthank you\u201d for American support, has caused havoc across Europe.
Sir Keir Starmer has faced calls to make reversing troop cuts in the British Army the focus of his plans to increase defence spending.
The Liberal Democrats said the Army should be restored to a total of 82,000 troops, after a cut by the Conservative government in 2021 reduced its size to 72,500.
The restoration of the Army\u2019s size should be made in step with the commitment to boost defence spending to 2.5% of the UK\u2019s economic output by 2027, the Lib Dems said.
The Prime Minister will pay for the defence spending increase by cutting the international aid budget.
Sir Keir has pledged to deploy British troops in Ukraine as part of peacekeeping efforts in the event an agreement to end the war is struck.
However, the Lib Dems warned that the current size of the Army could mean there is only capacity to send one combat division to Ukraine as part of the proposals.
Editorial<\/strong><\/a>: Never before has the \u2018leader of the free world\u2019 told a brave nation fighting for its survival that it would be better if it gave up. Donald Trump must not succeed in pushing the Ukrainian people to surrender
The UK and Ukraine have agreed a \u00a32.26bn loan to support Ukraine’s defence capabilities, the Ukrainian finance minister has said.
Serhiy Marchenko said Sir Keir Starmer, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Rachel Reeves held a video call with Mr Marchenko this evening.
Marchenko wrote on X that the funds are “ensured by frozen Russian assets”.
He added that he was “grateful” to the UK for “holding the aggressor accountable for the war”.
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Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged inUkrainian president will meet with King Charles on Sunday ahead of a defence summit with European leadersFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":128390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}