On Monday, June 21, the Secretary of State for Defense Procurement of the United Kingdom and the Deputy Secretary of Defense of Ukraine signed a memorandum on the implementation of maritime partnership projects. This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
The Memorandum was signed by the Minister of Defense Procurement of Great Britain Jeremy Quinn and Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksandr Mironyuk aboard the HMS DEFENDER missile destroyer of the Royal Navy in the port of Odesa.
The Memorandum provides for the joint design and construction of warships in Ukraine and Great Britain, the reconstruction of Ukrainian shipbuilding enterprises and the construction of two Ukrainian naval bases.
"This is another step in the development of bilateral cooperation between Ukraine and the United Kingdom to strengthen the Ukrainian fleet, which faces constant danger in the Black and Azov Seas," Ukraine's Ministry of Defense noted.
The destroyer HMS DEFENDER arrived in Odesa last Friday. This is the second Royal Navy ship to visit Odesa in the past few weeks, after HMS TRENT.
In June, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine needs help and must immediately resolve the issue of joining NATO. He later said that if the West does not help Kyiv with the Donbas, the Ukrainian army will have to become "the most powerful in terms of equipment and troops in Europe."