Wes Streeting vows 'we're with Ukraine until they win' on his first visit to Kyiv as Andy Burnham's defence secretary

By KATHERINE LAWTON, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER Published: 19:57, 5 August 2026 | Updated: 20:01, 5 August 2026 Wes Streeting has vowed to stand with Ukraine 'until they prevail' during his first visit to Kyiv as Andy Burnham's defence secretary.  The politician, 43, said Russia is losing the war - hours after a wave of their ballistic missile and drone attacks on the city left at least 17 people dead and 44 injured.  The comments were made on Wednesday during Streeting's first visit to Kyiv as defence secretary, having resigned as Sir Keir Starmer's health secretary in May.  While in Ukraine, the MP pledged the UK's loyalty to the war-torn country, adding: 'The prime minister and I both felt it was important to demonstrate very early on the unwavering and unequivocal support that this government has for Ukraine.  'I'm conscious that we are going to a capital city that in recent days, let alone recent years, has been suffering heavy bombardment.'  In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Russia fired 24 ballistic missiles and 115 drones at Ukrainian civilian warehouses, a brewing company and a train station.  The attack was the latest in a series of large-scale Russian ballistic missile strikes that have become near-routine this summer.  Streeting said: 'What I'm going to do is to understand what more we can do to support Ukraine through what will be a challenging winter, but also beyond, because ultimately it's in our national interest as well as, you know, I think the collective and moral good for Ukraine to win.'  British Defence Secretary Wes Streeting shakes hands with acting Minister of Defence of Ukraine, Yevhenii Khmara, during his visit to the Ukrainian capital on Wednesday Streeting during a meeting with acting Minister of Defence of Ukraine Mr Khmara in Kyiv  At least 17 people have been killed, and another 44 are wounded after a huge barrage of missiles sent Kyiv up in flames overnight  Ukraine has a limited stockpile of interceptor missiles for the US-made Patriot systems, the sole air defence system in its arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles, making large volleys like Wednesday's hard to stop - even as Ukraine has stepped up deep strikes on Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure. Large warehouse fires burned in the city of Brovary and the villages of Velyka Dymerka, Kvitneve and Peremoha. A fire involving vehicles at an enterprise in Fastiv district was extinguished. In Bucha district, crews battled a warehouse fire in the village of Chaiky after putting out a separate fire at a logistics facility in Sofiivska Borshchahivka. In the capital, one person was killed and 15 were wounded, and emergency crews extinguished all fires sparked by the strikes in the Obolonskyi, Sviatoshynskyi, Holosiivskyi and Desnianskyi districts, the Kyiv City Military Administration said. Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine's president on defence technology development, said the war of attrition has entered a new phase. 'The enemy is attacking everything indiscriminately - retail warehouses, food storage facilities, logistics hubs, enterprises, building materials warehouses,' he said on Facebook. Police officers and security guards at the site of the building of a supermarket warehouse hit by a Russian missile strike overnight  Firefighters work at the site of a fire after Russian missiles hit a food warehouse near Kyiv, Ukraine It comes after Ukraine urged its allies to provide more supplies of US-made Patriot missile interceptors to protect its airspace against Russian ballistic attacks. On Saturday, Russian attacks on Kyiv and its suburbs killed 10 people and wounded more than 30, while Ukrainian drones sank a huge Russian container ship in the Black Sea. Drone strikes from both sides have become a regular occurrence, with Ukraine intensifying its attacks on civilian infrastructure, including oil and gas facilities. Five people were killed and 10 others wounded in the Moscow region on Tuesday morning in strikes that targeted depots of the Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries. Ukraine, meanwhile, expressed outrage over a video showing a man chased by a drone in Kherson city, calling it a deliberate 'hunt' and 'safari' targeting civilians.