UK PM Meets JEF Allies; Kyiv Gov: 'Fairly Serious' Damage From Drones

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is in Riga, Latvia to attend a Baltic summit of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), a British-led group of nations that are supporting Ukraine's war effort. Contains Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. UK gov't has announced that it will provide a GBP250mn package of hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds in 2023 to support the Ukrainian war effort.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to address the group of leaders, with expectations for the Ukrainian leader to request significant supplies of military hardware in order to break the seeming deadlock, with Politico reporting, "Whitehall figures believe we are at a critical point in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, with the only way for either side to break the standstill being with a major supply of weapons — which Ukraine would need help from the U.S., U.K. and other major Western allies to procure."
• Comes as the governor of the Kyiv region of Ukraine Oleksiy Kuleba states that the most recent drone attacks by Russia have caused 'fairly serious' damage to the capital and its surrounds. Iran the major provider of these drones, resulting in increased Western scrutiny of Tehran's actions.