On Thursday, February 12, 2026, during the 33rd meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, the United Kingdom’s Defence Secretary John Healey announced the delivery of an additional 1,000 Thales LMM (Lightweight Multirole Missile) Martlet lightweight surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine.
LMM Martlet / Photo: Thales Air Defence
The United Kingdom has announced that it will urgently deliver new missiles and air defense systems worth more than 500 million GBP to help protect Ukraine from brutal Russian attacks on energy infrastructure and civilian targets. The package includes, among other items, an additional 1,000 LMM Martlet missiles, as well as short-range RapidRanger air defense systems with command vehicles valued at 390 million GBP.
Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed that the United Kingdom will also, for the first time, provide 150 million GBP under NATO’s new Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) funding mechanism, through which procurement is carried out in the United States.
In the coming months, the United Kingdom will also deliver an additional 1,200 air defense missiles and 200,000 rounds of artillery ammunition through the multinational Air Defence Consortium (ADC).
The United Kingdom’s Defence Secretary, John Healey, said:
“As we approach the fifth year of Putin’s full scale invasion, the UK and our allies are more committed than ever to supporting Ukraine. I’m proud of the UK’s continued leadership and pleased to confirm a new half a billion pound package of air defence, including £150 million for PURL, to help Ukrainians defend against Putin’s relentless drone and missile attacks.”
The UDCG meeting, attended by representatives of 50 countries, was co-chaired by the United Kingdom and Germany. Participants included Ukraine’s Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and Australia’s Minister for Defence Richard Marles. The meeting addressed Ukraine’s key defense requirements for 2026, shared battlefield lessons learned, planned equipment deliveries, and identified capability gaps that need to be closed.
Last year, the United Kingdom assumed co-chairmanship of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group alongside Germany, as well as leadership, together with France, of the Coalition of the Willing. Both Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the Defence Secretary have made clear that the United Kingdom’s national security, the foundation of the government’s Plan for Change, begins in Ukraine.
LMM Martlet
The previous package of more than 5,000 LMM Martlet missiles for Ukraine was announced on March 2, 2025, with the first deliveries beginning on October 10. Earlier, on September 6, 2024, the UK government announced the transfer of 650 missiles of this type, manufactured by Thales Air Defence, as part of a package worth 162 million GBP. The weapons were first observed in service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine on April 10, 2022. They are launched from shoulder-fired systems as well as from tracked Alvis Stormer vehicles.
The LMM was developed as a multirole weapon under the Future Air-to-Surface Guided Weapon (Light) (FASGW(L)) program. It was selected by the Royal Marines as the successor to the STARStreak missile and by the Royal Navy as armament for AW159 Wildcat AH.1 battlefield reconnaissance helicopters. In late June 2019, Martlet missiles were fired for the first time from the Type 23 Duke-class frigate HMS Sutherland (F81).
The LMM missile measures 1.3 meters in length, 76 mm in diameter, and weighs 13 kg, including a 3 kg warhead. Powered by a two-stage solid-fuel rocket motor, it reaches speeds of up to Mach 1.5 and has a range of 6–8 km. The missile is guided by active or semi-active laser beam riding and, in the terminal phase, by an infrared seeker. It was designed for multiple roles, including as a naval missile (with a launcher developed by the Turkish company Aselsan), for ground attack, air-to-air, and surface-to-air missions. In July 2014, a modified FreeFall LMM (FFLMM) variant was unveiled, converting the missile into a glide bomb. Thales partnered with the U.S. company Textron to market the weapon under the name Fury.
British Support for Ukraine
Last year, the United Kingdom announced it would supply 350 short-range MBDA ASRAAM (Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile) missiles for use with Raven mobile launchers mounted on Supacat HMT 600 (High Mobility Transport) 6×6 vehicles.
The United Kingdom also invested a record 350 million GBP last year to increase drone deliveries to Ukraine from 10,000 units in 2024 to 100,000 units in 2025. To date, the UK has sent approximately 400 different weapons systems to Ukraine.
In the future, Ukraine is also expected to receive planned new British tactical ballistic missiles currently under development under the codename Nightfall.
The UK is set to deliver an additional 1,000 Lightweight Multirole Missiles, manufactured in Belfast, that will be critical to defending Ukrainian infrastructure and cities from Russia’s escalating drone and missile attacks.
The UK is ironclad in our commitment to Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/BuoKkMrkkG
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) February 12, 2026
Britain is providing an extra half a billion pounds in urgent air defence to Ukraine and will play a central part in NATO’s Arctic security mission.
This is how we are stepping up in this new era of threat and hard power 👇 pic.twitter.com/d5OuL5QnMP
— John Healey (@JohnHealey_MP) February 12, 2026