A British Army program to train 10,000 Ukrainians the basics of the art of warfare every 120 days has kicked off at military facilities across the UK, Britain's Ministry of Defence announced Saturday.
“This ambitious new training program is the next phase in the UK’s support to the Armed Forces of Ukraine in their fight against Russian aggression,” Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was quoted as saying in a press release.
“Using the world-class expertise of the British Army we will help Ukraine to rebuild its forces and scale up its resistance as they defend their country’s sovereignty and their right to choose their own future,” Wallace added.
The training will involve roughly 1,050 UK military personnel, and offer several weeks’ worth of instruction for recruits “with little to no military experience” to provide them with the “basic skills” needed for warfare. The program is being run by the 11 Security Force Assistance Brigade, a British Army brigade formed during the First World War specifically to train foreign forces. The 11th Brigade has already racked up a wealth of experience in the 21st century training the militaries stood up by the US and the UK after their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s.
The MoD says the training course will include weapons handling, first aid, field craft, patrol tactics and the Law of Armed Conflict. The British Army has procured more than 2,400 Kalashnikov assault rifles like the ones Ukrainian forces will be using on the front lines for training purposes, and will provide the Ukrainians with personal protective equipment, uniforms, boots, cold and wet weather clothing, and other equipment.
The UK already trained some 22,000 Ukrainian personnel between 2015 and 2022, and has committed over £2.3 billion ($2.76 billion US) in military assistance to the country, including over 5,000 NLAW and 1,500 Javelin anti-tank weapons, M270 heavy multiple launch rocket systems, intelligence support, jamming and electronic warfare equipment, and Starstreak man-portable air defense systems.
Separately on Saturday, the UK’s MoD reported that its military intelligence had picked up on the movement of Russian reserve forces “from across the country” and their assembly near Ukraine “for future offensive operations.” The report did not provide any specifics.
Despite a fuel price crunch and cost of living crisis, the British government has used the Ukraine crisis to justify a ramping up of defense spending, which is already 2.3 percent of GDP – comfortably above the 2 percent NATO spending requirements. Late last month, the government announced plans to bolster defense spending by at least 0.2 percent by the end of the decade.
On Thursday, the UK Office for Budget Responsibility warned that Britain’s debt load could reach 320 percent of GDP over the next half-century if taxes are not raised, defense spending is not cut, or if the country enters a permanent global trade war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin blasted US and its allies on Thursday for instigating the Ukrainian crisis in 2014 through an “unconstitutional armed coup in Ukraine,” and warned that the US and its allies had lost the conflict by unleashing the new hot phase of the conflict.
“…[T]hey should have understood that they already lost. From the very beginning of our special military operation. Its start also meant the beginning of a radical breakdown of the American-style world order,” Putin said.
The president said that Russia “by and large [hasn’t] even started anything” in Ukraine militarily speaking, and called the West’s attempts to pump up Ukraine to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian” a “tragedy for the Ukrainian people.”