Ben Wallace, Britain's defense secretary, said the country had started
sending small arms to Ukraine. He claimed the weapon posed no threat to
Russia after repeatedly throwing accusations that Moscow was planning to
attack its neighbour.
"We have taken the decision to supply Ukraine with a light anti-armor
defense weapon system," Wallace told British lawmakers earlier this week.
He added that the initial shipment had arrived in the country hours earlier.
While Wallace did not provide details on the number or type of weapons
delivered, he said they were not strategic weapons and pose no threat to
Russia, and would only be used by Ukrainian forces in self-defense. A small
number of British troops will also train local soldiers on how to use the
new equipment.
"It's a short range but either way it's going to make people stop for a
moment and think what they're doing and if the tanks are rolling into
Ukraine, attacking it, then they're going to be part of the defense
mechanism," Wallace continued.
The UK and US governments continue to predict an invasion of Ukraine by
Russia, although Moscow insists that Russia has no plans to carry out an
armed attack.
Nonetheless, over the weekend, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan
claimed Moscow would make a pretext for attack, threatening to deliver a
strong response that would target Russia economically.
A proposal to cut Moscow off the SWIFT international banking network is also
reportedly still on the table.
Sullivan's warning as well as London's vows to arm Ukraine's military came
days after several US and former officials told Yahoo News that intelligence
agencies were now "training insurgency" in Ukraine in the event of a Russian
invasion, with one former CIA staffer saying the program was instructing
troops on how to kill Russians.
Despite the escalating hostilities, Wallace said he invited his Russian
counterpart, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, to meet in London in the coming
weeks to address the issue.
He added that the current gap is wide but unbridgeable, and he remains
hopeful that diplomacy will prevail.
