British representative to the UN: the UK is ready to become a guarantor of Ukraine’s security

The Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations said that her country was ready to "play its part" in providing security guarantees for Ukraine if Kyiv so requested.

The EP reported this with reference to a statement by Barbara Woodward.

When asked whether London would be able to act as a guarantor of Ukraine's security, the British representative said that the British government was providing significant humanitarian and military support to Kyiv.

"The total amount spent on aid to Ukraine is more than 400 million pounds. In addition, Boris Johnson and Volodymyr Zelenskyy hold telephone conversations almost every day," she said.

"And what we want to do is help in any way possible, end this war, ensure the withdrawal of Russian invasion troops. We would be happy to play a role in this if the Ukrainian government asks us to do so, yes," she said.

Earlier, the head of the British government said that a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine would not be enough to provoke the lifting of British sanctions.

To recap, the negotiating teams of Ukraine and Russia met in Istanbul on March 29. Another round of talks took place.

Ukraine offered Russia a project outlining its vision of security guarantees for the country.

"We insist that this is an international agreement signed by all security guarantors who will ratify… Not to repeat the mistake that was once in the Budapest Memorandum; it turned out to be just a piece of paper," said the head of the Ukrainian delegation Davyd Arakhamia.

He stressed that the guarantors should be the UN Security Council countries.

"Who do we see among the guarantors? First, the UN Security Council countries: Britain, China, and Russia (also included), the United States, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland, Israel," said Arakhamia.

"We offer free accession to the guarantee agreement. That is, we have the minimum amount of guarantees we want to receive, but if other countries also want to join, we will give them such a legal right," said the negotiator of the Ukrainian delegation.