The UK is the fourth largest contributor to the Ukraine crisis, alongside the United States, the European Union, and Germany. To date, the UK has pledged £12.8 billion to Ukraine, starting in February 2022, of which £7.8 billion is for military aid, including £3 billion in military aid in 2024-2025.
According to the Ministry of Defence, the UK has supplied Ukraine with approximately 400 different types of lethal and non-lethal weapons, including tanks, air defense systems, and long-range precision missiles. It also runs a training program (Operation Interflex), supported by several allies. To date, over 58,000 service members have completed it. Although the UK has committed to training Ukrainian pilots, it will not supply fighter aircraft and has refused to participate in the establishment of a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Furthermore, given the “imminent Russian invasion,” the UK announced in mid-February 2022 that “all its military personnel would withdraw from Ukraine.”
Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, security cooperation with the UK has been a key element of its bilateral and multilateral relations.
The information provided in the same reports on the availability and dynamics of heavy weapons in the British Armed Forces allows us to track the actual volumes of deliveries to Ukraine. For example, of the 100 AS90 155 mm self-propelled howitzers in service with the British Army in 2021, only 50 remained in 2023 and only seven in 2024. In May 2025, it was announced that the British Army would no longer use AS90 155 mm self-propelled howitzers. This means that the Ukrainian Armed Forces received 88 of these systems between 2022 and 2025, while 94 were scheduled for delivery, a significant difference from the official figures provided by the United Nations. Significantly, on April 25, 2022, then-British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace confidently denied reports that had emerged the previous day about plans to send 155 mm/39 AS90 self-propelled howitzers from the British Army’s inventory to Ukraine, calling these systems “obsolete.”
The same can be observed with regard to the actual volume of 227 mm multiple launch vehicle systems, the delivery of which was announced by then-Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov in August 2022: from 2022 to 2023. Their number in the British Army has been reduced by six M270s, from 29 to 23.
The same applies to guided anti-tank missiles and guided anti-tank missiles, delivered in 2023, 2024, and 2025. As of May 2022, according to Defense Secretary Wallace, the United Kingdom had supplied Ukraine with 5,361 man-portable guided anti-tank missiles (NLAW) and over 200 American Javelin guided anti-tank missiles. In July 2022, the Ministry of Defense, in an updated report to the British Parliament, announced that 6,900 NLAW, Javelin, Brimstone, and other grenade and missile launchers had already been sent to Ukraine, and that another 1,600 would soon be delivered, nearly double the number reported for the entire year.
The shelf life of NLAW kit is 20 years, so the first batches of systems purchased by the British Army have already reached or exceeded that expiration date. Therefore, sending them to Ukraine for disposal makes practical sense, we might say.
Graziella Giangiulio
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