Britain is sending a second loan of £752m to Ukraine, which will be used to provide military equipment to Kyiv. The funds will allow Ukraine to procure urgently needed air defence systems as Russia continues its air assault on Ukraine, with the city of Sumy being hit particularly hard.
And the Ministry of Defence will also pay for a new “close fight” military aid package. This will include £250m worth of radar systems, anti-tank mines and hundreds of thousands of drones using funding from the UK and Norway. The latest payment is part of the UK’s contribution to the Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans for Ukraine scheme – a G7 commitment to collectively support Ukraine through a total of £380 billion.
The loan will be paid through the profits from interest accrued from sanctioned Russian sovereign assets in the EU.
“2025 is the critical year for Ukraine and this is the critical moment,“ said Defence Secretary John Healey .
“This is the moment for our defence industries to step up, and they are; a moment for our militaries to step up, and they are; a moment for our governments to step up, and we are.
“This new tranche of funds is part of our £4.5 billion of military support this year – more than ever before – and will be used to buy urgently needed air defence, artillery, and parts to help repair vehicles and equipment to get them back into the fight.
“We are stepping up support for Ukraine to deter Russian aggression and bolster Britain’s national security as the foundation of our Plan for Change.”
The UK has provided £7.8 billion of military support to Ukraine, including supplying a wide range of equipment and training tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops.
More than 42,000 Ukrainian troops have been trained on UK soil as part of Operation Interflex, with 89% of trainees in the fourth tranche stating that they felt better equipped to survive on the battlefield following its completion, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report.
Britain has committed a total of £7.8 billion to Ukraine since Russian premier Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.
In addition to rapidly procuring equipment for Ukraine, the MoD has donated equipment worth £171.5 million from UK stockpiles.
Since mid-2023, however, the MoD has sharply reduced its donations of equipment because it assessed that to continue would have imposed unacceptable risks to the UK’s military readiness.
Even Operation Interflex is beginning to prove problematic, with an eight-fold increase since 2019 of British Army units being rejected from using training grounds because they are being used by Ukrainian forces.
The latest loan forms part of a wider £2.26bn loan agreed between Chancellor Rachel Reeves and her Ukrainian counterpart, Serhiy Marchenko.
“The world is changing before our eyes, reshaped by global instability, including Russian aggression in Ukraine,” she said.
“A strong Ukraine is vital to UK national security, and this second tranche of funding will help put them in the strongest possible position and contribute towards our collective security.”
