David Cameron Visits Ukrainian Port City of Odesa

The United Kingdom’s top foreign diplomat, David Cameron, traveled to the Port of Odesa Thursday to pledge continued support for the Ukrainian war effort.

Cameron’s visit marks the first that the former British prime minister has taken since being named to his new role of foreign minister.

It also marks the first time a British diplomat has traveled to the port city, a common target for Russian airstrikes during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Cameron said the U.K. would continue to provide whatever support was needed to Ukraine, “but above all, the military support that you need not just this year and next year but however long it takes.”

The visit came as Ukraine faces significant setbacks in the war effort, including attention shifting to the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East, the European Union’s inability to provide all the munitions it promised, and political fighting in the United States threatening additional aid to Ukraine. 

The U.K. said its $5.7 billion of military aid to Ukraine was second only to the U.S., and the country had trained 30,000 Ukrainian troops.  

“Russia thinks it can wait this war out and that the West will eventually turn its attention elsewhere,” Cameron said in a statement Thursday. “This could not be further from the truth. In my first discussions with President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy in my new role, I made clear that the U.K. and our partners will support Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes for them to achieve victory.”

The Ukrainian counteroffensive has seen little success, and the war appears to be reaching a stalemate, a situation that Zelenskyy has warned would create a “volcano that is sleeping but will definitely wake up.”

“We cannot afford any stalemate,” Zelenskyy told African journalists in Kyiv on Wednesday. “If we want to end the war, we must end it. End with respect so that the whole world knows that whoever came, captured and killed, is responsible.”

According to the Ukrainian president, if the war becomes a stalemate, future generations of Ukrainians will have to fight, because Russia “will come again if it is not put in its place.”

Zelenskyy’s comments came two weeks after General Valery Zaluzhny, commander in chief of the Ukrainian military, told The Economist that the war had “reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.” 

Zelenskyy admitted that the situation on the battlefield remains very difficult but said he does not believe that the war has reached a stalemate. He emphasized that Ukraine will not negotiate with Russia until it completely withdraws from Ukrainian territories.

Some information in this report was taken from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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