UK Considers Sending British Military To Train Ukrainian Troops In Ukraine

The plan carries risk as Russia will view it as a provocation and because the British trainers will become targets for Russian attacks.

But if the decision is made, it will also send a strong message to Russia and its Chinese, Iranian and North Korean allies that the UK, NATO and the US have no intention of backing down. JL

Larissa Brown reports in The Times of London:

British military chiefs are considering sending troops to Ukraine to train soldiers in “secluded” locations to help Kyiv’s recruitment efforts. Under the plans being discussed, small groups of British military trainers would travel to the west of the country to provide intensive basic training to new recruits before they head to the front line in the east. Transferring the training to Ukraine would send a “powerful military-political signal” to Russia "and to others." It would also mark the beginning of a “de facto” deployment of Nato’s military infrastructure back inside Ukraine and would be a “powerful deterrent”.

British military chiefs are considering sending troops to Ukraine to train soldiers in “secluded” locations to help Kyiv’s recruitment efforts, sources have disclosed.

Under the plans being discussed, small groups of British military trainers would travel to the west of the country to provide intensive basic training to new recruits before they head to the front line in the east.

This would solve some of the logistical issues that come with sending Ukrainian troops to UK bases for training and save money, according to two sources with knowledge of the talks.

President Zelensky visited Downing Street today for talks with Sir Keir Starmer as part of a tour of European nations to seek greater military support for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia. Zelensky and Starmer embraced outside No 10 before the talks, which will include Nato’s new secretary-general, Mark Rutte.

Mark Rutte, Nato’s new secretary-general, right, said it would be “legally sound” for long-range missiles to be fired from Ukraine

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL

Speaking outside Downing Street, Rutte said the West should “stop worrying” about the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House. He said Trump understood that the war in Ukraine had a bearing on the safety and the future security of the United States.

 

He also said it would be “legally” sound for the UK and the US to fire long-range weapons, such as Storm Shadow missiles, inside Russia but it was “up to allies” to give them permission.

Under the British-led multinational military operation codenamed Operation Interflex, tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in the UK since the start of the war in Ukraine. However, John Healey, the defence secretary, admitted last month that the “biggest constraint” in training Ukrainians was “Ukraine providing the personnel in order to be trained”.

A UK defence source said that sending British troops to Ukraine instead of carrying out the training at military bases in the UK would be “cheaper for us and better for them”. The source said: “We could do [the training] quicker out there and it would be very far away from the front line, in secluded locations, so the risk would be much lower.”

A Ukrainian military source said that transferring the training to Ukraine would send a “powerful military-political signal” to others and to Russia itself. The source said it would also mark the beginning of a “de facto” deployment of Nato’s military infrastructure back inside Ukraine and would be a “powerful deterrent”.

British soldiers would also learn battlefield skills from Ukrainian troops and have the ability to test the latest weapons being developed for the war, the source added.

John Healey, the defence secretary, and Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, chief of the defence staff, attended the talks

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL

More than 100,000 Ukrainian servicemen have completed training abroad, mainly in the UK, Poland, France and Germany, since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. A French official said nearly 15,000 Ukrainians had been trained by the French armed forces so far as part of an EU mission.

Earlier this year President Macron raised the possibility of deploying Nato troops to Ukraine, adding that all options for supporting Ukraine should remain open.

It later emerged that France was seeking to assemble a coalition of European countries willing to send military trainers to Ukraine, on the grounds that it would be more efficient to train them locally. Discussions have also been held inside the UK Ministry of Defence.

The Ukrainian source said they hoped that British leadership would inspire France to follow suit and carry out training inside Ukraine after discussions in Paris appeared to have stalled for political reasons.