Ukraine's Special Ally in the War against Russia

The announcement of Ukraine and Britain's plans to conclude a long-term security agreement looks like a Christmas present for us, especially given the hesitance of the other key partners. Although the document itself is not yet available and it is still difficult to judge its scope, there are several reasons to expect more from it than from the usual “good intentions” of Western countries. Officials from both sides talked about the preparation of the agreement back in the summer, Andrii Yermak, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said in August that it could be signed by the end of 2023. We are trying to reach an agreement on defense cooperation, including in the post-war period, with a great power, even though it is undergoing a rough patch of its own history. And, finally, this news inspires confidence because the United Kingdom remains, perhaps, Ukraine’s most consistent ally in the ongoing war.

Among our friends, Britain truly is in a class of its own: there are practically no influential political figures and political forces who question the need to help Ukraine or the importance of providing our country with large-scale military aid. None of the parliamentary parties expresses doubts that Ukraine should be supplied with weapons (including heavy ones) and ammunition (including the most modern types). Britain is one of the few partners where we do not have to watch the elections with bated breath, wondering whether the new government will cut the amount of military aid or not. London has stood by our side since the very beginning of the war: the first decisions on military support were made in 2014, the British were among the first to launch training programs for Ukrainian servicemen, provided intelligence and weaponry.

Back in 2020, Ukraine and the UK signed the Political Cooperation, Free Trade and Strategic Partnership Agreement, in which considerable attention was actually paid to Russian aggression and measures to counter it. Based on this agreement, London supported the Crimea Platform, expanded military and military-technical cooperation unilaterally, beyond the framework of collective steps of Western institutions. After Russia’s full-scale invasion started, Her Late Majesty’s government was able to quickly give us weapons in a greater variety and in larger quantities than many Western countries (decisions on Brimstone missiles, naval drones and a number of other systems were made as part of the 2020 agreement).

Most importantly, British support to Kyiv is based not only on common values, but also on British strategic interests. The withdrawal from the European Union strongly affected the UK’s status in the world and prompted London to seriously reconsider its foreign policy. The search for its place in the world pushed Britain to a vigorous policy – first of all, in regions without leaders and plagued by conflicts and political uncertainty. One of these regions is the so-called New Eastern Europe (the European post-Soviet countries left behind by the EU and NATO) and the Black Sea. The struggle for influence here has become one of the main elements of the “Global Britain” doctrine – it is within this framework that the conservatives formulated their view of the country's post-Brexit policies.

Until 2016, the eastern outskirts of Europe remained on the periphery of Britain’s attention. It was Brexit, not the beginning of Russian aggression against Ukraine, that became the starting point of a new approach. By the end of the 2010s, the British became one of the most visible actors here, forging close cooperation with the countries of the region, along with Poland and Romania, which themselves demonstrated increased vigour on the EU’s eastern borders. Moreover, British activity from the very onset was mainly military-strategic in nature — as an economic partner, the region remains secondary for London. Since the beginning of the 2020s, Eastern Europe and especially the Black Sea region have become the most important strategic priorities of Britain: in documents on the defense and foreign policy strategy of 2021, the Black Sea is mentioned much more often than the Baltic Sea, which had been a priority since the 1990s.

The shift of London's interests towards the Black Sea is also associated with the peculiarities of modern British military industry: in recent decades, there has been a shift towards naval forces and the advancement of fleet-related expeditionary capabilities. Although such a turn in British politics was made under Labour (at one time Tony Blair rammed through the construction of two attack aircraft carriers), now it is up to conservative governments to justify prioritized spending on the fleet. Labour, liberal democrats and Scottish nationalists criticize many items of expenditure, such as the maintenance of the aircraft carrier fleet, new communication systems and the construction of new strategic nuclear missile carriers. It is not surprising that in its assistance to Ukraine, the British government most actively promotes those forms that are connected with Ukrainian successes in the Black Sea. Having assumed responsibility for naval victories in the war, London strives to prove the effectiveness of budget spending on its own fleet.

The focus of British policies in Eastern Europe decisively shifted towards the Black Sea and Ukraine even before the start of the full-scale invasion: the operation to train military specialists for Ukraine became the most ambitious in the region in the late 2010s, the program to help increase the capabilities of the Ukrainian navy was launched in 2021, and shortly before the start of the invasion, London announced the creation of a tripartite British-Ukrainian-Polish security platform. Ukraine was identified as a priority recipient of military aid in the region (and a potential priority military partner). London's attitude to the Russian threat played its role in this decision: the British openly recognized it back in the 1990s, when no other influential Western state agreed with it. The UK also became the first major power to officially identify Russia as an enemy immediately after the start of its war against Ukraine.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, London has remained an unwavering supporter of the continuation of Ukraine's struggle against the Russian aggressors, thus confirming its commitment to the military-strategic dimension of regional politics. For the British, maintaining Ukraine's ability to confront Russia on the battlefield is not just a continuation of the deterrence policy against Moscow. The British were the first to advocate for massive military aid, they insisted louder than anyone else on resolving the conflict by military means and have stood most consistently for restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity (which now virtually guarantees the continuation of the war). For this reason, the British present Ukraine's successes on the battlefield as evidence of their strategic importance and clout in the region.

While it’s true that the British are pushing us to continue the war, as long as prospects of winning otherwise than on the battlefield are poor, this is exactly the support that we need. Britain is our most sincere and consistent wartime ally – simply because it is now more profitable for it than anyone else in the West.