The government has announced a further £450m of military support to Kyiv, as the UK and Germany prepare to host a meeting of 50 nations in Brussels.
Defence officials are convening to “pile pressure” on Russian President Vladimir Putin and force him to end his invasion of Ukraine, UK Defence Secretary John Healey said.
“We must step up to deter Russian aggression by continuing to bolster Ukraine’s defences,” he added.
The package includes funding for hundreds of thousands of drones, anti-tanks mines and and repairs to military vehicles.
About £350m will be provided by the UK, with extra funding from Norway via the UK-led International Fund for Ukraine.
The package includes £160m to provide repairs and maintenance to vehicles and equipment the UK has already provided to Ukraine.
A “close fight” military aid package, with funding for radar systems, anti-tank mines and hundreds of thousands of drones, worth more than £250m is also part of the package, the government said.
Healey said the work of the group “is vital to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position”.
“We cannot jeopardise peace by forgetting the war, which is why today’s major package will surge support to Ukraine’s front-line fight,” he said.
Speaking at a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Brussels, Healey added: “2025 is the critical year for the war in Ukraine, and this is a critical moment.
“Our job as defence ministers is to get urgent military aid into the hands of Ukrainian war fighters.”
He urged other nations at the meeting to “look harder at what more you can do”.
The UK’s funding pledge follows a series of military pledges to Ukraine from the UK.
Last month, Sir Keir Starmer announced a £1.6bn missile deal for Ukraine, following a summit of European leaders in London, on top of a £2.2bn loan to provide more military aid backed by profits from frozen Russian assets.
The Lib Dems said the support package announced on Friday was “small change” and called for the government to seize Russian assets in Britain to give Ukraine more funding.
“While we welcome any increase in support for Ukraine, this package is small change compared to what’s needed to combat Putin’s barbaric war,” the party’s defence spokeswoman Helen Maguire said.
Healey and his German counterpart, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, are co-chairing Friday’s meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which had traditionally been hosted by the US defence secretary until Donald Trump became president in January.
Since then, in a sign of the US stepping back from European security matters, Healey has taken over as chair.
Healey said US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth was, however, attending Friday’s meeting virtually, as was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The meeting follows a similar gathering of defence ministers from 30 countries in the Franco-British-led “coalition of the willing”, who met in Brussels to discuss installing a force in Ukraine to ensure enduring peace.
Healey said he did not envisage installing a peacekeeping force that would “separate the currently warring sides down the line of contact”, but added that bolstering Ukraine’s armies would be a key part of the plan.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said the role such a peacekeeping force would play needed to be discussed further among the so-called “coalition of the willing” – a group of nations who have pledged to stand with Ukraine.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said: “If we have such boots on the ground, so what is the goal? Are they monitoring, are they deterring, are they keeping the peace, are they fighting? I mean what could be the goal? And that’s not really clear.”
Trump once said he would end the war in Ukraine in less than 24 hours – but so far, his attempts to bring the conflict to a close have only produced limited success.
In March, Putin rejected Trump’s call for an immediate and full month-long ceasefire – which Kyiv had agreed to – instead saying only that it would halt attacks on energy infrastructure.
Despite limited success, US efforts to negotiate a ceasefire appear to be continuing. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Russia on Friday, where he is set to meet Putin, according to US news site Axios.
Meanwhile, fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops has intensified in the past week, according to Ukrainian military chiefs, who said assaults on the front line have increased by 30%.
It is thought these assaults are part of a spring offensive by Russia. Kyiv believes Moscow is preparing for a major renewed assault, with tens of thousands of troops believed to have gathered along the border with Ukraine.
On Thursday night Russia attacked Ukraine with waves of drones, injuring at least four people in the Kharkiv region, the regional governor said. Drones coming from Ukraine were also intercepted in the Kursk and Belgorod regions, Russian state media reported.
Earlier this week, Zelensky publicly acknowledged for the first time that his troops are active in Russia’s Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine. Ukrainian troops have also been fighting in Russia’s Kursk region – though Russia has since retaken most of the territory.
