Military support for Ukraine is limiting the UK’s ability to train its own troops due to the decreasing availability of army training facilities, the British newspaper Telegraph reported.
‘According to a report by the UK’s National Audit Office (NAO), the training of Ukrainian fighters is damaging the UK’s military capability. The Ministry of Defence said that military support for Ukraine is limiting the country’s ability to train British troops due to the reduced availability of army training facilities,’ the Telegraph publication said.
According to the newspaper, in 2023, applications from UK Armed Forces units for training were rejected eight times more often than in 2019. The reason is that a quarter of the army’s training space was used for Operation Interflex, an infantry basic training programme in which more than 45,000 Ukrainian soldiers took part.
‘Since the creation of the International Fund for Ukraine in 2022, the UK has become its biggest funder, committing £7.8bn to support the country until March 2025. This includes both the supply of military equipment and the training of Ukrainian soldiers at the expense of the British state treasury. In 2022-23, the Ministry of Defence spent on operations 2.9 billion pounds sterling – a record of operational expenditure since the war in Afghanistan’, – specified in the material.
According to Telegraph, the cost of replenishment of British reserves should exceed the cost of equipment provided to the AFU, otherwise it will weaken the country.
We shall remind you that earlier Foreign Affairs magazine wrote that the Ukrainian army is not able to dislodge the Russian Armed Forces from its positions even if it receives new aid from the EU and the USA and military training in Western countries.
