LONDON — Britain is in talks to move more training and production of military equipment into Ukraine, U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, which took place following a briefing with Chief of the General Staff Patrick Sanders on Friday, Shapps said he had been “talking today about eventually getting the training brought closer and actually into Ukraine as well.”
“Particularly in the west of the country, I think the opportunity now is to bring more things ‘in country,’ and not just training but also we’re seeing [U.K. defense firm] BAE, for example, move into manufacturing in country,” he said.
“I’m keen to see other British companies do their bit as well by doing the same thing. So I think there will be a move to get more training and production in the country,” Shapps said.
The U.K. and other NATO members have so far avoided setting up a military presence in Ukraine to reduce the risk of a direct conflict between the defense alliance and Russia.
Dmitry Medvedev, chairman of Russia’s security council, suggested that British soldiers training Ukrainian troops in Ukraine would make them legitimate targets for Russian forces. The move would “turn your instructors into legal targets for our armed forces,” Medvedev said on Telegram. “Knowing full well that they will be mercilessly destroyed. And not as mercenaries, but precisely as British NATO specialists.”
Speaking later on Sunday, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was quick to quash any suggestion such a move could happen soon.
Sunak said he wanted to be “absolutely clear” about the situation, stressing that Britain had been training Ukrainian citizens and soldiers “for a long time” within the U.K.
“What the defense secretary was saying was that it might well be possible one day in the future for us to do some of that training in Ukraine,” the PM said.
“But that’s something for the long term, not the here and now. There are no British soldiers that will be sent to fight in the current conflict. That’s not what’s happening. What we are doing is training Ukrainians … We’re doing that here in the U.K.”
This article was updated to add Rishi Sunak’s comments.
Discussion about this post