UK to send more arms to Ukrainian military as Russian invasion reaches Kyiv

Britain has said it will continue to supply arms to Ukraine’s embattled military as the fighting with Russian forces reached the outskirts of the capital Kyiv.

Armed forces minister James Heappey said Russian troops had not made the progress they might have hoped, with the main armoured columns still some way from the city.

The UK has already sent 2,000 anti-tank missile launchers and Heappy said they were looking to get more weaponry to the country.

On Friday, defence secretary Ben Wallace convened a meeting with 25 other donor nations who agreed to supply arms or humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Heappey told BBC Breakfast: “We know what the Ukrainians want. We are doing our best to get it to them.”

Watch: Russian invasion could go on for months, says armed forces minister

Heappey warned there would be “days, weeks, months more” of heavy fighting as Russian president Vladimir Putin strives to topple the Ukrainian government and impose his will on the country.

He said: “This is going to be a long slog. It is going to be brutal.

“We are going to see some horrendous things on our TV screens.”

While the situation was “very grave”, he added it was clear that the Russian advance was not going to plan in the face of stiff Ukrainian resistance.

Heappy said the Kremlin had expected to take a slew of Ukrainian cities on day one of the invasion, while encircling Kyiv ahead of a full-scale assault.

However, so far the fighting in the capital had been confined to “very isolated pockets of Russian special forces and paratroopers” with the main armoured columns “still some way off”, he added.

Read more: Putin started lying about Ukraine invasion two months ago, Russian President's ex-spokesman admits

A defiant Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky refused an American offer to evacuate despite enemy forces closing in on the capital, insisting: “The fight is here”.

But Heappey said the Ministry of Defence was working on plans to support a resistance movement and a government in exile if Ukraine was finally overrun.

“That is a decision for the National Security Council to take but it is something that the prime minister has asked us in the Ministry of Defence to look at and plan for,” he told Sky News.

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Boris Johnson addressed a message directly to the people of Russia, saying in Russian: “I do not believe this war is in your name.”

In a video posted on social media, the prime minister also spoke Ukrainian after urging an end to the conflict “because the world needs a free and sovereign Ukraine”.

Watch: UK and US impose sanctions on Putin as Russia closes in on Kyiv

The UK, the US and the European Union all announced plans to impose personal sanctions on Putin and his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

Heappey said Britain was still working to try to secure international agreement on the “ultimate economic sanction” of excluding Russia from the Swift system for international banking transfers.

Meanwhile, Scotland’s external affairs secretary Angus Robertson has said Russia’s “illegal” invasion of Ukraine has “no conceivable justification” and will leave a “permanent stain” on the reputation of Putin’s regime.

He has written to the Russian ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, to make clear that the Scottish government condemns the “unprovoked invasion of a peaceful, democratic neighbour in the strongest possible terms”.

In his letter, Robertson suggested there should be an “immediate cessation of Russia’s aggression” as he called for troops to be withdrawn from Ukraine immediately.