LONDON, February 26. /TASS/. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated that more countries are now ready to provide aid to Ukraine to ensure its defense.

According to his Twitter page, the British prime minister urged his NATO and North European allies to provide support to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

On Friday, Johnson held phone talks with the member states of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) urging them to increase their aid to Ukraine as well as elevate sanctions pressure on Russia. The alliance, formed in 2014, in addition to the UK, also includes Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Estonia.

"We strongly support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and reiterate the right of all sovereign nations to choose their own path, their own security arrangements and their own alliances, free from external aggression and coercion, as a fundamental principle of the European security order. We call on Russia to de-escalate and encourage them to engage in transparent dialogue, including through the OSCE and the NATO-Russia Council, in order to reduce tensions," according to a joint statement issued by the defense ministers of the JEF.

On Friday, a virtual donor conference for Ukraine chaired by the UK was held with the participation of 25 countries, some of which agreed to supply Kiev with lethal weapons. The list of the participants has not been announced.

According to the Sky News TV channel, the conference participants may have discussed the issues of delivering ammunition, weapons and medical products to Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address on Thursday morning that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories.

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported later on Thursday that Russian troops were not delivering strikes against Ukrainian cities. It emphasized that Ukrainian military infrastructure was being destroyed by precision weapons.