The UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps had to abandon his planned visit to Odesa last week after intelligence reports suggested that Russia had become aware of his travel arrangements. The BBC reported this development, citing information from Ukrinform.
Shapps arrived in Ukraine on March 7, accompanied by Adm Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the defense staff, and a small British delegation. However, the trip to Odesa was abruptly canceled at the last minute.
According to details from the Sunday Times, which had a correspondent traveling with Shapps’ delegation, the decision to cancel the visit came after an intelligence update revealed that the Kremlin was aware of the trip. The previous day’s strike in Odesa elevated the threat level to Shapps’ safety from substantial to critical.
Shapps told the newspaper expressing concern over Putin’s actions, “Putin has shown himself to be reckless, ruthless, and careless.
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?”
Shapps was scheduled to travel to Odesa a day after a missile struck the city while the Ukrainian president and the Greek prime minister were visiting.
The UK defense ministry cited “security reasons” for canceling the visit, emphasizing the significance of the UK’s support in light of Putin’s aggression.
Earlier in the week, it was reported that an RAF plane carrying Shapps between the UK and Poland experienced GPS signal jamming while flying near Russian territory.
During his visit to Ukraine, Shapps announced that the UK would allocate £325 million to purchase 10,000 cutting-edge drones for Ukraine, as reported by Ukrinform.
