British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has agreed to transfer the intellectual property behind the United Kingdom’s Stone Cloak electronic warfare system to Ukraine, allowing Kyiv to manufacture the drone-mounted jammer on its own soil.
The announcement came on July 27, 2026 as Burnham received Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, docked at Portsmouth on England’s south coast. It was the first visit by any foreign leader since Burnham took office on July 20.
Stone Cloak is a tablet-sized device fitted to long-range drones that interferes with Russian air defences, making the aircraft harder to detect and intercept. The British Ministry of Defence has already supplied thousands of the units, which were developed under the 100-year partnership London and Kyiv signed in January 2025.
Ukraine becomes the first country authorised to build the system under licence. Burnham described it as “the very best of British innovation”, saying battlefield use would continue to feed back into its development.
Downing Street said operational data from Ukraine would also inform Project Brakestop, the British programme to develop low-cost cruise missiles able to strike targets more than 500 kilometres away.
Zelensky pressed for more interceptors capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles, warning that Moscow was expanding production of them. He said the relationship between the two countries was “stronger than ever”.
Russia has intensified strikes on gas installations, power plants and other critical infrastructure this year in a campaign aimed at straining Ukraine’s energy and logistics networks.
The two leaders met about 200 Ukrainian personnel taking part in a three-week exercise in maritime security and mine countermeasures, held in preparation for future operations in the Black Sea. Zelensky said on X that the talks had also covered joint defence production.
Downing Street put total British support for Ukraine at £25 billion (€28 billion) since 2022, including £16 billion (€18 billion) in direct military assistance. Burnham said he intended to travel to Ukraine soon.
Zelensky was due in Washington on July 28, 2026 for talks with US President Donald Trump, and to attend the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham. At the NATO summit in Ankara on July 8, Trump told the Ukrainian leader that Kyiv could build American-designed Patriot air defence systems.
Burnham is the fifth British prime minister Zelensky has dealt with since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, and the seventh person to hold the office in a decade.
United States-led efforts to secure a ceasefire have slowed as Washington’s attention has turned to the war in Iran, though the Russian foreign ministry said Moscow remained open to new proposals. The Kremlin said it had seen nothing specific before Zelensky’s departure for the US.
