Ukraine war: UK to provide 10k drones to Ukraine as dismissed commander to become new ambassador

The British government said on Thursday that it will provide 10,000 drones to Ukraine in its continued fight against the Russian invasion.

The announcement was made by Defence Secretary Grant Shapps during a visit to Kyiv with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The pledge corresponds to a new investment of £125 million (€146.3 million) on top of £200 million (€234.2 million) which had been previously committed to drones.

The weaponry delivered will include 1,000 one-way attack drones and models that target ships.

“Ukraine’s Armed Forces are using UK donated weapons to unprecedented effect, to help lay waste to nearly 30% of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet,” Shapps said.

Zelenskyy also announced on Thursday that dismissed Ukrainian commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi will become Kyiv's new ambassador to London.

“Our alliance with Britain should only strengthen,” Zelenskyy said.

The president removed Zaluzhnyi from his top role as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military as part of a shake-up aimed at reigniting momentum in the conflict, which many have seen as stalling since last summer.

The Ukrainian president is set to visit Turkey on Friday, meeting with his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The two leaders are expected to discuss the conflict in Ukraine, the Black Sea Grain Initiative - a deal which Turkey helped broker - and bilateral relations.

Zelenskyy has issued a decree calling for conscripts who have been serving in the now over two-year war against Russia to be discharged into the reserves within the next two months.

The conscripts won’t be called up again for 12 months.

In his marquee State of the Union address last night, Joe Biden made an argument that democracy at home in the US is threatened like no time since the Civil