Sunak's Office Says UK Will Not Dictate Others What Should Be Given to Ukraine

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The United Kingdom will not dictate other countries what weapons they should deliver to Ukraine, but additional support is needed, the spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Tuesday.

The statement was made against the backdrop of growing pressure on Germany over supplies of Leopard battle tanks. On Monday, Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said that Warsaw had requested Berlin to approve the sending of Leopard 2 tanks of Poland's army to Ukraine.

"As the foreign secretary and others have said, we would like to see additional support provided to Ukraine. What we are not going to do is dictate to other countries exactly what they should or should not provide - first and foremost that must be for those countries," the prime minister spokesperson said.

He added that the UK would keep working with its allies to secure future arms supplies.

On January 15, Sunak announced the UK will send 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. However, despite extensive arms deliveries, the United States and Germany have not agreed to send their main battle tanks Abrams and Leopard to Kiev yet. Last week, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said NATO members had failed to negotiate a single position over the tanks issue at the meeting at the Ramstein Air Base.

Western countries have been ramping up their military support for Kiev since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. In April, Moscow sent a note to NATO member states condemning their military assistance to Kiev. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that any arms shipments on Ukrainian territory would be "legitimate targets" for Russian armed forces. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in turn, stated that arms provision was undermining prospects for a future peace process.