The government of Ukraine has entered into a new trilateral military alliance together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of Poland. 

The alliance is called the Trilateral Memorandum of Cooperation. 

A joint statement released by the foreign ministers of the three countries says that Poland and the UK will assist Ukraine to build resilience by providing military and technological support to “strengthen democracy” in the country. 

“Our 3 nations will intensify our joint work to safeguard stability and build resilience in Ukraine, strengthening democracy at the frontier in Eastern Europe,” the statement says in parts.

“To this end, we agreed today to develop a Trilateral Memorandum of Cooperation. This will demonstrate our commitment to further strengthening the strategic cooperation and engagement between our 3 nations on the highest priority issues in support of Ukraine.

“We will work together to advance our cooperation, which includes but not limited to coordinating support to the International Crimea Platform, increasing our collaboration on cyber security, energy security, and boosting strategic communications to counter disinformation,” the statement further noted.

According to the statement, the UK and Poland will continue to provide Ukraine with support to defend its sovereignty in the face of ongoing Russian aggression.

Although it is unclear whether Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s intention to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will be replaced by the new military alliance, Ukraine’s partnership with NATO is bound to grow, given that both the United Kingdom and Poland are long-standing members of the U.S.-led alliance.

While the statement also emphasised staving off what it called “Russian aggression,” it is unclear how the alliance will make Ukraine respect the Minsk II agreement it signed with the Donbas area in 2015 which the country has repeatedly broken by shelling the separatist territories with heavy artillery.