Ukraine Update

Blair McDougall Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I am going to get all Members in, but that would be greatly helped if we could have shorter questions.

[Blair McDougall (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)]

Over recess, I delivered a message of solidarity from St Andrew’s church in Barrhead to St Andrew church in Bucha, the site of a horrific massacre. It was clear when I was in Kyiv that that brutality has meant the Ukrainians are still determined to fight, but again and again, they raised their concerns about their exposure and their overreliance on American air defence. What can we do to mitigate that, and what consideration has the Secretary of State given to creating an integrated air defence zone in the west of Ukraine?

[John Healey]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for being out in Ukraine, demonstrating the solidarity of Government Members and the House in general. As he will have heard in his conversations with the Ukrainians, the overwhelming priority of the civilian population is air defence. That is why the announcement of the £1.6 billion that I put into new short-range air defence missiles—lightweight multi-role missiles, or LMMs—to Ukraine was so important. It is also why the work we have done in recent months alongside Denmark to develop Gravehawk, an innovative new technical system to help reinforce Ukrainian air defence systems that we will be able to roll out more generally, is so important. It is that combination of innovation, industrial speed and partnership with Ukraine that is reinforcing Ukraine’s ability to fight for itself and protect itself.