UK Troops To Leave Ukraine Prior To Possible Escalation
London, Feb 12: UK troops stationed in Ukraine for training purposes will withdraw during weekend as to not be present in the country in the event of military conflict with Russia, the UK minister for armed forces, James Heappey, said on Saturday.
“There will be no British troops in Ukraine if there is any conflict with Russia,” Heappey told Sky News, specifying that “they will be leaving over the course of the weekend.”
UK troops have been in Ukraine “for many years” and trained “tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers,” including training to operate anti-tank weapon systems that London sent Kiev in January.
Since 2015, when the UK launched Operation Orbital training mission in Ukraine, over 22,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained. In mid-January, London sent 2,000 missiles and more instructors to Ukraine, making the total number of instructors 100. However, London has repeatedly said that would not dispatch military units to Ukraine in the event of escalation.
NATO, with the United States at helm, has been also supplying the Ukrainian military with weapons and training, which Russia slammed as a violation of the Minsk Agreements on peace process in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the foreign arms supplies encourage Ukraine to prioritize the military, rather than political resolution of the conflict. Russia has rejected the accusations of planning to invade Ukraine made by NATO countries. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia was not threatening anyone but was being threatened.
