Defence Secretary Grant Shapps (Image: PA Wire/PA Images) Get the latest top news stories sent straight to your inbox with our daily newsletter More Newsletters Subscribe Please enter a valid email Something went wrong, please try again later. More Newsletters We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. More info Thank you for subscribing! We have more newsletters Show me See Our Privacy Notice See Our Privacy Notice × Group 28 Get the latest top news stories sent straight to your inbox with our daily newsletter Invalid email Something went wrong, please try again later. Sign Up No thanks, close We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. More info × Group 28 Thank you for subscribing! We have more newsletters Show Me No thanks, close See our Privacy Notice An unexpected threat caused Grant Shapps to skip his Odesa visit. A potent
missile threat from
Russia barred the
UK Defence Secretary's planned trip to Ukraine's southern city of Odesa, according to a snippet from a Sunday Times article that a source close to Mr Shapps confirmed. The alert came when he was flying to Poland last week from RAF Northolt. He learned about how dangerous it had become in that area after he heard that a convoy carrying President Volodymyr Zelensky of
Ukraine and Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime Minister, barely dodged a
Russian attack on their visit to the port city on 6th March. Ukrainian officials have informed us that the missiles killed five innocent people. The incident drastically increased the risk involving Mr Shapps' visit- it jumped from serious to critical according to the Sunday Times, who obtained inside information from the delegation. Read More Related Articles Volunteer divers handed expert search device in memory of Scots dad killed in fishing tragedy Read More Related Articles Extinction Rebellion stage North Sea
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protests across six countries Accompanied by Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of defense staff, and a small team of
British experts, Shapps travelled by train at night time from Poland, arriving in Kyiv on 7th March to discuss the ongoing situation with Mr Zelensky and members of his wartime office. Nonetheless, a sudden intelligence upgrade that unveiled Kremlin's awareness of this trip meant they had to call off the scheduled continuation journey to Odesa. "Putin has shown himself to be reckless, ruthless and careless," said Mr Shapps, who decided it safer to return through Poland to the UK, in an interview with the Sunday Times. Join the Daily Record's
WhatsApp community here and get the latest news sent straight to your messages. "The fact that he came perilously close to essentially assassinating two western leaders, it doesn't matter whether that is deliberate or accidental. What the hell is he doing, and why the heck would the West allow him to do that kind of thing? ". This was the senior Tory's second visit to Ukraine as Defence Secretary and his third since the war began in February 2022. Mr Zelensky is facing a decrease in support from the West for Kyiv. European countries are finding it hard to provide enough weapons and ammunition for Ukraine, and US aid worth 60 billion dollars (£47 billon) is being delayed due to political disagreements in
Washington.
Republicans who support
Donald Trump have been delaying the funding package in
Congress for months, and there is little hope for more US funding for Ukraine if the former president gets re-elected. On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces had to leave the strategic eastern city of Avdiivka last month, where they had been fighting a tough Russian attack for four months despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned. Mr Shapps said he hoped his visit would act as a "wake-up call" to "push, persuade and even embarrass the rest of the world into action". Senior British
MILITARY figures say western allies including the UK would need to increase their investment by hundreds of billions of pounds to outdo Russian President
Vladimir Putin, who has increased defence spending by nearly 70%, according to the Sunday Times. Top news stories today Girl hacked off hair after racist abuse Girl died on hols from hidden condition Call for drug use to be decriminalised Muscle from arm fills hole in throat Mr Shapps has said this week that he thinks we should spend more money on the military, up to 3% of all the money our country makes. Rishi Sunak, who is in charge, has said he would like to spend more on defence too, up to 2.5%, when we have enough money. When someone asked if the Prime Minister should promise to spend more on defence soon or at the time we choose who leads the country, the person in charge of defence told the newspaper: "Yes." Don't miss the latest news from around
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