British Foreign Secretary David Cameron believes that the use of the British Royal Air Force to shoot down drones over Ukraine would draw NATO into a direct conflict with Russia. Cameron said this in response to a question from LBC about why the British Air Force could not shoot down Russian drones in Ukraine, similar to the way it shot down Iranian drones over Israel this weekend.
Cameron said that his country has "done more than any other country individually to help the Ukrainians. We've trained over 60,000 Ukrainian troops, we were the first to give them anti-tank weapons, long-range artillery and tanks”.
But, he warned of the risks of using British military assets in direct confrontation with Russia.
"I think the difficulty with what you suggest is if you want to avoid an escalation in terms of a wider European war, I think the one thing you do need to avoid is NATO troops directly engaging Russian troops. That would be a danger of escalation," Cameron said.
He believes that the best thing the UK, and other nations could do, was continue to provide financial support to Kyiv.
"Do everything you can to support Ukraine, in terms of money, in terms of diplomacy and, crucially, in terms of weapons. Giving them weapons to defend themselves, training their troops, those things are absolutely the right thing to do," he said.
When a journalist asked why the Royal Air Force could not help by "shooting down unmanned drones" as it has done for Israel, Cameron said that using jets "not necessarily the best way of shooting down missiles and drones, air defence systems are more effective".