{"id":5304,"date":"2023-05-15T18:19:12","date_gmt":"2023-05-15T13:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=5304"},"modified":"2023-05-15T18:19:14","modified_gmt":"2023-05-15T13:19:14","slug":"zelensky-says-hopeful-of-jets-deal-soon-with-uk-western-allies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/world\/zelensky-says-hopeful-of-jets-deal-soon-with-uk-western-allies\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelensky says hopeful of jets deal soon with UK, Western allies"},"content":{"rendered":"

London, May 15 :Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said he was hopeful of securing a quick deal to get fighter jets from Western partners, after meeting British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zelensky confirmed the pair talked about the issue during a meeting at the prime minister’s country retreat northwest of London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterwards he said he was “very positive” about creating a “jets coalition” for the war against Russia and that a decision would come “in the closest time”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You will hear some I think very important decisions,” he said in English but added that “a little bit more” work was needed until then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zelensky in February gave a much-acclaimed speech to the UK parliament in which he pleaded for Western jets, on only his second trip overseas since the war began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His tour of European capitals starting last week has helped Ukraine secure more promises from France and Germany of military aid before an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But NATO members have so far drawn a line at sending Kyiv modern fighter jets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, Sunak confirmed that Britain would help Ukraine to train “combat-ready pilots” as part of its support package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re ready to implement those plans in relatively short order,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunak said he would talk to other countries’ leaders about aircraft support at the upcoming Council of Europe and G7 meetings this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His Downing Street office meanwhile confirmed that Britain would in the coming months send “hundreds” of both air defence missiles and long-range attack drones with a range of more than 200 kilometres (125 miles) to fend off Russia’s invasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, Britain became the first Western country to offer long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, with its Storm Shadow rockets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dressed in his trademark military fatigues, Zelensky gave a bear hug to Sunak when he stepped off a Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter in the grounds of Chequers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the talks, Zelensky tweeted that Britain was a “leader when it comes to expanding our capabilities on the ground and in the air”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunak pledged Britain’s long-term security support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The frontlines of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war of aggression may be in Ukraine but the fault lines stretch all over the world,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is in all our interest to ensure Ukraine succeeds and Putin’s barbarism is not rewarded.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London, May 15 :Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said he was hopeful of securing a quick deal to get fighter jets from Western partners, after meeting British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Zelensky confirmed the pair talked about the issue during a meeting at the prime minister’s country retreat northwest of London. Afterwards he said […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":5305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,342,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-politics","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}