UK Developing New Missiles for Ukraine as Defence Secretary Declares Putin 'Losing This War'

29 out of 195. That is how many Russian ballistic missiles Ukraine managed to knock down in July, according to Ukraine's own ministry figures — about one in seven getting through a shield that is supposed to protect cities, power plants and front-line supply routes.⁹ It is the number that explains why Britain's new defence secretary flew into Kyiv, why air defence dominated every meeting he held there, and why talk of new missiles now matters more than communiques about solidarity.

At least 17 people were killed in the Russian strike on the capital that immediately preceded the visit, Kyiv Post reported.⁶ Defence Secretary Wes Streeting arrived in Kyiv hours after fresh Russian strikes, making the trip on 5 August 2026 for his first visit to the capital as defence secretary.²³ Forces News reported that the deadly Kyiv barrage put ballistic missile defence at the centre of the visit.⁵

The meeting itself was straightforward in form and urgent in substance. The Kyiv Independent confirmed that Streeting met President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on 5 August, his first visit to the capital.³ Kyiv Post said the two men discussed missile defence and joint arms production in the aftermath of the strike that killed at least 17 people.⁶ The visit came under Prime Minister Andy Burnham's government, and missile and air-defence co-operation was central to the trip.

In an exclusive ITV News interview given during that first visit, Streeting said Vladimir Putin is "losing the war in Ukraine" and that the United Kingdom will stand with Ukraine, under the headline pledge "We're with Ukraine until they win".² The Scottish Sun reported that Streeting arrived amid a huge blitz and insisted Britain's quarrel is with Putin, not the Russian people, while hailing Ukraine's "valiant resistance".⁷

A day later, Ukraine's defence ministry gave the more technical version of what had been discussed. On 6 August, Ukraine and the United Kingdom discussed strengthening air defence, air capabilities, countering Russian drones, and funding Ukrainian unmanned systems production.⁴ That list — interceptors and launchers, aircraft and air-delivered weapons, drone defence, and money for Ukraine to build its own unmanned systems — describes a layered problem rather than a single weapon purchase.

What London did not provide was equally important. No timeline or technical details for the new missile capability were given by Streeting in the ITV interview — the sources confirm discussions but no delivery dates.² There was no public description of range, seeker, launcher, production location, or when any system might reach Ukrainian forces. For now the British offer exists as intent and intensive work, not as a fielded capability with a calendar.

Kyiv is not waiting for allies alone. On 7 August, Zelensky said Ukraine is racing to develop its own ballistic missiles and a new anti-ballistic defence capability, with "concrete results" targeted by 2026-27, amid Patriot interceptor shortages.⁸ The Guardian quoted Zelenskyy saying interceptor missile development must show "concrete results" by the end of this year, adding "We will build missiles the way we built drones".¹⁰

That drone analogy is deliberate, and revealing. Ukraine built a world-leading strike and reconnaissance drone industry under fire because it could not secure enough conventional airpower and long-range strike from partners quickly enough. Missiles are harder — propulsion, guidance, warheads, testing and mass production at scale — but the July interception figure shows why Kyiv believes it has no choice but to try.⁹ Twenty-nine intercepts from 195 incoming ballistic missiles is not a sustainable rate for protecting Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro or Odesa through another winter of strikes on energy infrastructure.

Later reporting added a concrete industrial step beyond the August visit. On 24 August, CNN reported that Britain will release classified technology so a British and French-designed cruise missile, known as SCALP and Storm Shadow, can be manufactured in Ukraine.¹¹ That is a different proposition from shipping finished missiles from British stocks: it points toward co-production inside Ukraine, with access to sensitive design and manufacturing data that London has previously guarded closely.

Taken together, the two tracks — a British promise to develop new capability focused on air defence, and a Ukrainian drive to build ballistic and interceptor missiles at home — describe the next phase of the war as an industrial contest. Russia is firing ballistic missiles faster than Ukraine and its partners can intercept them with expensive Western interceptors. Ukraine's answer is to make more interceptors itself, make its own ballistic missiles to hold Russian targets at risk, and persuade allies to move production lines east rather than simply deplete their own arsenals.

The political signal of the 5 August visit also mattered. It was the first visit to Ukraine by a minister of the Burnham government, and Streeting used it to declare continuity: Britain intends to remain one of Kyiv's principal military backers despite a change of government in London. Arriving hours after a strike that left bodies in the capital, rather than postponing, reinforced that message in a way a statement from Whitehall could not.²⁶

The gaps remain large and undisguised. There is still no public timeline, cost, quantity or technical specification for the new British-supported capability, and no indication of when it might enter Ukrainian service. There is no public resolution of the Patriot interceptor shortage that forced Ukraine to look inward, nor any claim that co-production of cruise missiles will solve the ballistic-missile interception problem that dominated July. Those are separate engineering challenges, and conflating them would mislead.