British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps had to cancel a trip to southern Ukraine last week due to security concerns. The British Ministry of Defense announced this after the publication of the Sunday Times newspaper about the cancellation of Shapps' visit to Odesa.
According to the Sunday Times, the minister decided not to go to Odesa after British intelligence warned him that the plans of the British delegation had become known to Russia.
The trip was supposed to take place the day after Russian forces launched a missile attack on the city during a visit to Odesa on March 6 by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi and Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, five people died as a result of the attack.
Shapps arrived in Ukraine on March 7 on an overnight train from Poland, accompanied by Chief of Defense Staff Admiral Tony Radakin and a small group of British officials. He held several meetings in Kyiv with Volodymyr Zelenskyi and senior officials of his administration.
According to a report in the Sunday Times, a previously planned trip to Odesa was canceled just hours before departure based on intelligence. It followed from them that the Kremlin knew about Shaps' plans.
As a result, the threat level for the minister was raised from significant to critical.
"Putin has shown himself to be a reckless, ruthless and careless person," he was "close to killing two Western leaders, whether it was intentional or accidental," the minister told the newspaper after his return.
"I think given that Zelenskyi, the Prime Minister of Greece, and Oleksandr Kubrakov [Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine] were only 400 meters from the site of the missile strike, and then given the specific intelligence ... it would be reckless and senseless to insist [on the trip]," he added.
The official comment of the representative of the British Ministry of Defense states that "during the recent trip to Ukraine, the Minister of Defense did not make the planned visit to Odesa for security reasons."
The agency emphasized that Great Britain continues to provide strong support to Ukraine, and the defense minister's visit demonstrated the importance of this support in the face of Putin's aggression.
Earlier this week, the Times reported that Russia may have jammed the GPS satellite signal on Grant Shapps' plane as it flew past Russian territory on its way back from Poland.
