Britain and Ukraine signed a 100-year agreement Thursday, with Britain pledging to provide Ukraine with $3.6 billion in military aid this year.

The deal was announced during a joint news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, at the presidential palace where British Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Starmer is on his first trip to Ukraine since he took office.

Starmer called the agreement historic and said the new partnership “reflects the huge affection that exists between our two nations.” The partnership will include cooperation in the areas of culture, education, science and technology.

Regarding military assistance for Kyiv’s war against Russia, Starmer said Britain plans to provide Ukraine with a loan of more than $2.6 billion. He said the loan “will be paid back not by Ukraine, but from the interest on frozen Russian assets.” Starmer also announced that Britain was providing Ukraine with 150 artillery gun barrels and a new mobile air defense system.

In his comments, Starmer credited Ukraine’s allies, particularly the United States, for contributing to the success Ukraine has had against “aggression from Russia.” He said he wanted to pay tribute to the U.S. for “the work that the U.S. has done here, the support that they have put in, because it’s been a vital component of what has been quite an incredible achievement by Ukraine.”

The comments came just days before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, a critic of U.S. support for Ukraine, takes office and a day after the new president’s pick to be the U.S. secretary of state, Republican Senator Marco Rubio, told a Senate panel the war must end.

Speaking at his confirmation hearing, Rubio called the conflict a “war of attrition” and a “stalemate” that must be ended. He said the first step should be a ceasefire that halts ground fighting, which has for more than a year mostly occurred in eastern Ukraine.

Rubio called the destruction in Ukraine “extraordinary,” saying it will “take a generation to rebuild.”

“The truth of the matter is that in this conflict, there is no way Russia takes all of Ukraine,” Rubio said. “It’s also unrealistic to believe that somehow, a nation the size of Ukraine … is also going to push these people all the way back to where they were on the eve of the invasion.”

Even as he argued for a negotiated settlement to end the fighting that started with Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Rubio said it was unlikely that there would be much change in the current battle lines. Russia currently holds about a fifth of the internationally recognized Ukrainian land mass.

Democrats, and some Republicans on the committee, continued to voice their support for more military aid to Ukraine, saying it was important to give Kyiv leverage in any eventual peace talks with Moscow.

But Rubio said that one of Ukraine’s key problems was not a shortage of ammunition or money but its inability to train and recruit enough troops.

At Thursday’s news conference in Kyiv, Zelenskyy refused to speculate on what U.S. support for Ukraine will look like under a Trump administration.

“It is too early to talk about the details, because we have not yet had a detailed conversation with the new U.S. administration about security guarantees,” he said.

Trump has voiced skepticism about continued U.S. military support for Kyiv and repeatedly vowed that he would end the war when he assumed the presidency on Monday.

In recent days, his aides have said the new timeline is ending the war in the first 100 days of his administration, which would be by the end of April.

Ken Bredemeier and Chris Hannas contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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