LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Boris Johnson has disclosed that dozens of Ukrainian soldiers are undergoing training in the United Kingdom, learning how to operate 120 British armoured vehicles before they return to fight alongside them in the war against Russia.
According to the prime minister, British personnel are also training the Ukrainian soldiers in Poland on how to employ anti-aircraft missiles as part of the UK’s military assistance for embattled forces of Kyiv.
He could tell that they were actively educating Ukrainians in Poland in the use of anti-aircraft defence, and they were actually training Ukrainians in the UK on the use of armoured vehicles, Johnson said during a visit to India, where he was scheduled to meet with the Indian PM, Narendra Modi.
As the Russian invasion enters its third month, the United Kingdom, along with other western countries have begun supplying Kyiv with NATO-standard weapons, which require just little training in order for Ukrainian soldiers to understand how to use them.
Before the weapons could be used in combat, the Pentagon announced this week that it will train certain Ukrainians to use a first batch of 18 US howitzers “outside the country.”
Both decisions reflect a greater involvement of the West in the conflict, which has previously concentrated on sending armaments to Ukraine’s army and imposing broad economic penalties on Russia.
However, a spokesperson for Johnson argued that teaching Ukrainians in the UK was not escalatory. What was escalatory were Putin’s and his regime’s actions in Ukraine. They were merely collaborating with their allies to provide Ukraine with the strongest tools possible to protect itself, he explained.
Russia is slowly amassing soldiers in Ukraine’s Donbas area, where western authorities say Moscow already has a three-to-one edge over the resistance. Although it is unclear whether Russian forces would be able to break through, the United States and the United Kingdom are preparing for a long period of weaponry supply.
Johnson and Modi will talk about the situation in Ukraine. India, which buys Russian military hardware, voted against a UN motion denouncing Putin’s actions in Ukraine in early March. During the visit, the UK government announced that it will grant India an Open General Export Licence (OGEL), the first in the Indo-Pacific region.
The change might allow the United Kingdom to deploy guns without having to obtain a licence on a case-by-case basis. The OGEL, according to the government, minimises bureaucracy and shortens defence procurement delivery times.
The Ukrainian military is reportedly being trained in the use of the Starstreak air defence missile system and the Stormer vehicles from which the missiles are launched, by the British personnel in Poland.
They were moving, in conjunction with their allies, to giving new sorts of equipment that perhaps the Ukrainians hadn’t had previous experience with, so it was only reasonable that they get the appropriate training to make the best use of it, a spokesperson for Johnson said.
