By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The UK will on Friday hold a nationwide one minute silence to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in honour of thousands of civilians and soldiers killed and injured in Kyiv.
The silence will be held at 11:00 GMT and comes after crowds gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square on Thursday to hold a vigil for Ukraine.
UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak is expected to urge allies to “move faster” in arming Ukraine at a meeting of the G7 later.
At Thursday evening’s vigil the crowd saw an emotional reading of the Ukrainian poem Take Only What Is Most Important by actress Dame Helen Mirren – who was visibly moved to tears, a BBC report says.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace also paid tribute to Ukrainian soldiers as the “bravest of the brave”.
The conflict, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February last year, has seen at least 100,000 of each side’s soldiers killed or injured, according to the US military.
Thousands of civilians have also been killed, with more than 13 million people made refugees abroad or displaced within Ukraine.
Ukraine has repeatedly urged its Western backers to increase support, as Russia mobilises ahead of an expected spring offensive.
During a virtual meeting of leaders from the G7 group of advanced economies later, Mr Sunak is expected to say an acceleration in support is “what it will take to shift Putin’s mindset”.
“This must be our priority now,” he will add. “Instead of an incremental approach, we need to move faster on artillery, armour, and air defence.”
He is expected to make the argument for supplying Ukraine with “longer-range weapons” to disrupt Russia’s ability to target Ukraine’s infrastructure, something to which he committed the UK earlier this month.
