Andy Burnham has said he plans to travel to the US next month to join European leaders lobbying Donald Trump to supply Ukraine with Patriot missiles.
The UK prime minister told Bloomberg he was “looking forward to going to New York” in September, which is when the UN general assembly will meet. He said details of the trip were not “fully confirmed” but it was “likely” to go ahead. The trip would be Burnham’s first US visit since becoming prime minister in July.
During Burnham’s first trip to Kyiv as prime minister, on Monday, he reiterated the UK’s “unwavering” support for Ukraine. Ukraine in turn handed over what officials have called a “goldmine” of battlefield data to help bolster British security.
In a meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Burnham reiterated there would be “no change in the UK’s steadfast support” for Kyiv.
He also urged Ukraine’s allies to send more interceptor missiles to Kyiv as it struggles under continued Russian bombardment, and co-chaired his first coalition of the willing meeting, where he said the group was doing “everything we can” to “dig into our own stocks and help others dig into their stocks”.
