On 24 August 2026 British Prime Minister Andy Burnham visited Ukraine, his first overseas visit since coming to office on 20 July. This followed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky becoming the first foreign leader to be hosted by Burnham’s government on 26 July. Burnham is sending a clear message to the British ruling class that his Labour government will be even more aggressive in confronting Russia than the Starmer government it replaced.
During the 2015 Labour leadership contest, Burnham pledged that his first foreign visit as Labour leader would be to Israel. Now, coming to power after almost three years of Zionist genocide and worldwide protests for Palestine, he decided a trip to Israel would be political suicide. So he settled for British imperialism’s next-best attack dog: Ukraine.
In an act of significant political escalation, Burnham announced that Labour would hand Ukraine blueprints for components to produce its own SCALP medium-range cruise missiles. SCALP is the French equivalent to British Storm-Shadow missiles, which Ukraine has already been given to strike targets deep inside Russia.
British imperialism has consistently escalated NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine since 2022 under both Conservative and Labour governments. In response to Burnham handing Ukraine missile blueprints, Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: ‘Britain is participating in this war … on the side of the Kiev regime. Britain methodically and regularly adds fuel to the fire’. Burnham responded by accusing Russia of making ‘outrageous threats’ against Britain.
On 4 August a Ukrainian drone hit a busy beach on the Black Sea in Southern Russia, killing seven Russian civilians and injuring 40. This follows a recent escalation of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian civilian sites. In July and August Ukrainian drones struck some 30 Wildberries sites – Russia’s equi-valent of Amazon – killing a similar number of civilians. In early September, Zelensky threatened civilian airlines, warning that the ‘Russian sky is becoming completely dangerous’ as a result of Ukrainian drone strikes.
Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia have only been made possible by Western arms, intelligence and tracking data. Burnham providing SCALP missile blueprints is another example that politically, British imperialism is leading the escalations.
The British public still shows little appetite for war. Burnham’s anti-Russia chauvinism serves to justify further provocation of Russia, and to prepare the British working class for the imperialist conflicts to come. On 23 September he announced to the UN General Assembly that Britain will set up a new ‘National Centre for Information Defence’ to combat Russian disinformation. He cited, without evidence, Russian interference in the 2019 general election.
This follows repeated accusations from Western imperialist leaders of Russia conducting ‘hybrid warfare’ against European NATO members. On 1 September Germany accused Russia of being behind a ‘drone attack’ on Leipzig Airport on 4 August, where a drone reported by German authorities to be laden with explosives failed to detonate. Germany didn’t produce any evidence of Russian involvement. In response, Burnham said: ‘Russian attempts to undermine our united resolve and our willingness to support Ukraine are futile and doomed to fail’, echoing the accusations that Russia is conducting ‘hybrid warfare’ on European territory.
Meanwhile, on 16 September the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed that a British soldier was killed in Ukraine ‘in a tragic road traffic accident, away from the front lines’. He became the second British soldier to die in Ukraine, after a paratrooper was killed on active duty on 10 December 2025 in a ‘tragic accident’ while observing Ukrainian forces test ‘a new defensive capability, away from the front lines’ according to the MoD. Despite Britain’s flimsy accusations against Russia, there is no doubt that British soldiers are actively operating in Ukraine, an act of brazen aggression.
At the same time, Burnham’s Labour is shoring up arms production at home. On 24 August Labour announced a plan to use Ukrainian battlefield data to train AI models to protect British defence sites and national infrastructure from protesters or hostile states. The scheme will use buried fibre optic cables as AI-enabled sensors to detect unusual movement around such sites which would indicate an imminent attack by ‘hostile actors’, including pro-Palestine protesters.
As inter-imperialist rivalry intensifies, the British ruling class will demand even more brutal repression of anyone who opposes British warmongering and militarism. Burnham’s Labour Party is eagerly showing that it is up to the task.
