British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Tuesday that the U.K. would increase its defense spending by 2027 to bolster its security against the threat of Russian aggression exhibited by Moscow’s three-year war against Ukraine.

Starmer told Parliament that defense spending would increase by $17 billion annually, boosting outlays from 2.3% of the United Kingdom’s economic production to 2.5%, with corresponding cuts in overseas development assistance.

Starmer told lawmakers the increased defense spending was a "generational response” and the "biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War.”

He said it was necessary because "tyrants like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin only respond to strength."

"We must stand by Ukraine, because if we do not achieve a lasting peace, then the economic instability and threats to our security, they will only grow," said Starmer, who is set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday.

"And so, as the nature of that conflict changes as it has in recent weeks, it brings our response into sharper focus, a new era that we must meet as we have so often in the past, together, and with strength,” Starmer told the House of Commons.

Britain previously said it would increase its defense spending to 2.5% of its national economic production but did not pinpoint a date. It already is one of 23 of the 32 countries in NATO that meets the goal of the West’s main military alliance for each country to spend at least 2% of its gross domestic product on defense.

Starmer’s push to increase defense spending comes as European countries have expressed new concerns about ongoing military support from the United States as Trump advances his “America First” foreign policy agenda and pushes to settle the Ukraine war in discussions with Putin.

Starmer has offered to send British troops to Ukraine as part of a force to safeguard any ceasefire that might be agreed to but says an American "backstop" will be needed to ensure a lasting peace.

Trump has not committed to providing security guarantees for Ukraine, saying Monday after meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House that "Europe is going to make sure nothing happens."

Trump last week called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator” but has declined to characterize Putin the same way.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.

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