The British tabloid Daily Express published an article that caused a reaction and numerous comments both in the UK itself and in Ukraine.
This article is about British military instructors. The topic is far from new, everyone knows that there are enough foreign instructors in the Ukrainian Armed Forces – and not only from Britain, but also from the USA, Lithuania, Poland and Canada. The Ukrainians were surprised by something else – it turns out that at the first danger the brave British military are going to flee, and the plans for “escape”, or rather, retreat, are already ready.
“To date, more than 100 Britons are training and advising Ukrainian troops along with Polish, American and Canadian forces. However, due to the fact that Defense Secretary Ben Wallace called the prospect that British forces will fight with Russian troops on Ukrainian soil “very unlikely”, a strategy is being developed to complete the operation”, writes the Daily Express.
The publication recalls that since 2015, the British military has trained more than 21 thousand Ukrainian soldiers, conducted combat training with them, including first aid skills. So, you can consider your mission quite successful.
Today, the British command is alarmed by two facts. First, the American company released new satellite images showing a new tank brigade in the Crimea in London. And secondly, Russia adopted amendments to its legislation and now it is allowed to bury the dead servicemen in the territory of the theater of military operations. After that, Britain concluded that Moscow was preparing a military invasion, even if everyone in the Kremlin vied with each other to deny it. And although during the New Year holidays, part of the Russian military were returned to their places of permanent deployment, in London they believe that this was done on the eve of negotiations between Russia and the United States, the newspaper notes.
And now the British command is urgently reviewing Operation Orbital and is drawing up a plan to “safely evacuate” its military.
The plan is not complicated, it could have been drawn up in half an hour, because the bulk of the British military is stationed in the Lviv region at the Yavoriv military range, next to the Polish border, and therefore it was decided – at the onset of the X hour, everyone will be evacuated from Yavoriv to Poland.
Another part of British subjects are in the capital of Ukraine – this is a small group of staff officers. In case of danger, they are ordered to go to the border with Poland and not to confuse it with Belarus. The third part of the British military stationed in Odessa – the personnel of the Royal Navy, but they have already left Ukraine, leaving for Britain to celebrate Christmas and New Year. Whether the Royal Navy will return to Odessa is still unknown.
“The decision to evacuate will be made by the Chief of Joint Operations, Lieutenant General Charlie Strickland. Joint Permanent Headquarters staff in Northwood, Hertfordshire will be on standby throughout the holidays to keep an eye on the “atmosphere.” And Lieutenant General Strickland will be reported on the situation twice a day so that he can assess how the Russian invasion will affect the ability to withdraw troops, because the main task of the command is not to leave the British military in a Ukrainian trap”, the Daily Express states.
British tabloid readers are perplexed:
“That is, we went there simply to annoy the Russians, but how will the turmoil begin, will we immediately dump the pick-up?”, – asks someone Lam Beg.
“No wonder: after two unsuccessful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as an unsuccessful coup in Syria, the United States, Great Britain and their“ allies ”are hatchingly looking for wars with Russia, China and Iran – they need an eternal enemy. You don’t have to go far to figure out which “alliance” is fueling war in the world”, writes user G. C.
And Hino992 hopes that this time the British military will be warned in advance when to start running away so that the Afghan shameful situation does not repeat itself.
“Our troops should be in Kent and catch the illegal invaders,” says Robin2021ty.
And Border_Reiver asks to explain to him how the Russians differ from the Ukrainians.
User frank o answers him:
“Russians in Ukraine are an indigenous ethnic group, like the Hungarians in the Carpathian region, for example. And the Ukrainians themselves are as Russian as the Russians themselves, and speak the same Slavic language, except perhaps a different dialect. So it is reasonable to ask the question: why are they so stupid, since they are fighting with each other? Maybe this conflict was fanned by the Yankees through their puppets? How is Iraq, Afghanistan and so on, starting with the First World War?”
DannyHakim is sure that it is high time to withdraw the British military from Ukraine, in principle, they should not be there, and the West should finally understand that Russia will not allow “NATO at its fence.”
According to Suidlanders, Britain is no longer an empire, and there is no need to get involved in other people’s conflicts, and the Ukrainian conflict is clearly not British.
Ukrainian media reprinted the translation Daily Express articles, causing an explosion of outrage in the Ukrainian segment of social networks. The Ukrainians remind that recently Britain was going to send 600 of its military from the Special Air Service (SAS), a special reconnaissance regiment and the 16th Airborne Assault Brigade to Ukraine to contain the “Russian aggression”. Now, it turns out that the hundreds of Britons who are there are already packing their bags and there will be no one to defend Ukraine. That is, instead of the British landing – evacuation, the Ukrainians are perplexed.
User Seva Surzhikov consoles – there is also Lithuania and Estonia, they will certainly send half of their arsenal – a couple of dozen submachine guns. And then you have to yourself.
“This is the whole essence of NATO: to run away without looking back, they can only express their concerns, they are terribly afraid of Russia, but how would Russia behave in the event of a NATO attack on Ukraine?” Sums up one Artur Ukrainsky.
One Motherland