LONDON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will meet with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham at a naval base in England on Monday, a visit Burnham said is intended to signal the U.K.'s “unwavering” support for Ukraine.Zelenskyy’s trip is the first by a foreign leader since Burnham took office a week ago. His predecessor, Keir Starmer, was in Kyiv less than two weeks ago in his last overseas trip before leaving office.Burnham will be the fifth British prime minister to deal with the Ukrainian president since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve, and we will not back down until we achieve long lasting and just peace for Ukraine,” said Burnham, who has spent the past nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester and has little foreign policy experience. The U.K. trip comes a day before Zelenskyy is expected to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington.
During the visit to Portsmouth on England’s south coast, Zelenskyy and Burnham will meet more than 200 Ukrainian military personnel who have spent the past three weeks in Britain. They have been taking part in an exercise aimed at strengthening war-fighting capabilities and countermine measures in the Black Sea, the U.K. government said.The U.K. will give Ukraine the intellectual property behind its new “Stone Cloak” electronic warfare system, which is capable of jamming Russian air defenses to stop drones from being detected, Burnham’s office said.
