On October 7, in the presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was paying an official visit to the United Kingdom, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Andriy Taran and the UK’s Secretary of State for Defense Ben Wallace signed a memorandum on enhancing bilateral cooperation in the military and military-technical spheres (President.gov.ua, October 7; see EDM, October 29). An important aspect of this document was a funding pledge from the UK’s export credit agency in the amount of 1.25 billion pounds ($1.68 billion) for the construction of missile boats and new naval infrastructure in Ukraine.