Grant Shapps forced to cancel Ukraine plans after 'credible Russian missile threat' in latest security blunder
16 March 2024, 21:15 | Updated: 16 March 2024, 22:24
Grant Shapps was forced to abandon a trip to the Ukrainian city of Odesa because of a missile threat from Russia.
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The Defence Secretary aborted the visit after intelligence suggested that Russians had become aware of his travel plans in an embarrassing moment for British security, according to the Sunday Times.
An armoured convoy carrying Ukrainian president Zelenskyy and Greek Prime Minsiter Kyriakos Mitsotakis was nearly hit by Russian missiles near the port city on March 6.
Mr Shapps was in Ukraine alongside journalists from The Sunday Times to meet Zelenskyy alongside chief of the defence staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin.
Speaking to the newspaper, Mr Shapps said: "Putin has shown himself to be reckless, ruthless and careless."
Having travelled back to the UK through Poland, Mr Shapps continued: "The fact he came perilously close to essentially assasinating 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?"
The latest security breach comes after a major military operation was launched to identify the source of the Russian military cyber attack suspected of jamming the satellite signal on an RAF aircraft carrying Defence Secretary Grant Shapps back from Poland on Thursday.
Britain and Nato allies are now carrying out surveillance missions to locate the cyberhackers that blocked the RAF plane for almost 30 minutes.
Shapps had been travelling on the RAF’s Envoy, a Dassault 900LX, to visit troops in Mazury, a military base near the Belarus border, when the aircraft’s pilots lost access to the GPS.
A British Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft has now taken off from RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, and is headed for the Baltic. It will be joined by a US military Rivet Joint which left from a base in Mildenhall, Suffolk, the Daily Mail reported.
The two military aircraft will circle the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad, which borders Poland, and will detect the electronic emissions from GPS jamming systems.
