内容摘要：The UK will also have to make a financial contribution. However it is currently unknown how much this will be and when it will be required.

The UK will also have to make a financial contribution. However it is currently unknown how much this will be and when it will be required.

On meeting the star at a US book-signing in 2016, he urged him to consider playing in his home city of Liverpool. He also encouraged Springsteen's E Street Band guitarist Stevie Van Zandt at two meetings, with the latter having since performed at the city's Cavern Club.Mr Beard has now booked tickets for both of Springsteen's concerts at Anfield stadium on Wednesday and Saturday.

Mr Beard says he became "hooked" on the star's rock music, after first hearing it in 1976.He said he found the music "resonates" because of "the story in the songs - his truthfulness, the power, the rock and roll".Along with his wife Eileen, he watched all of Springsteen's three gigs in Manchester last month.

And that's on top of about 30 concerts across North America – including in Nashville and Memphis – plus many more in Europe.Mr Beard says he has been a big music fan since the age of 10, when he would listen to the BBC radio show Pick of the Pops with his mother.

He admired The Beatles and US singer Roy Orbison but admits to initially being "turned off by the hype" around New Jersey singer-songwriter Springsteen, who first released an album in 1973.

However a friend encouraged him to listen to the songs Born to Run and Thunder Road in 1976, and Mr Beard recalls he "bought all three albums the next day".Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the southern Crimea peninsula annexed in 2014.SBU sources earlier told BBC News Sunday's attack involved drones hidden in wooden mobile cabins, with remotely operated roofs on trucks, brought near the airbases and then fired "at the right time".

In several posts on social media late on Sunday, Zelensky said he congratulated SBU head Vasyl Maliuk with the "absolutely brilliant result" of the operation.He said that each of the 117 drones launched had its own pilot.