British army also deploying tanks in joint action with Nato and Joint Expeditionary Force
About 8,000 British army troops will take part in exercises across eastern Europe to combat Russian aggression in one of the largest deployments since the cold war.
Dozens of tanks will be deployed to countries ranging from Finland to North Macedonia this summer under plans that have been enhanced since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Continue reading...UK and Ukrainian ministers met to view missile systems and armoured vehicles that could be used in next phase of fighting
Britain is preparing to announce a fresh package of military aid for Ukraine and has demonstrated new missile systems and armoured vehicles that it believes can help Kyiv in the next phases of fighting.
Junior defence ministers Jeremy Quin and James Heappey invited Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Volodymyr Havrylov to Salisbury Plain on Wednesday, where they discussed what extra weapons the UK could supply.
Continue reading...Unresolved safety issues has led to four-year delay of 589 vehicles, leaving army with ageing equipment
The delivery of a fleet of armoured vehicles will be a significant challenge for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) because of failures that have led to delays and unresolved safety problems, according to the public spending watchdog.
The MoD has a £5.5bn contract with General Dynamics Land Systems UK (GDLS-UK) for the design, manufacture and initial in-service support of 589 Ajax armoured vehicles.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Critical defence select committee report to come amid growing Tory unease over No 10’s plan
The credibility of the government’s plan to put the Royal Navy in charge of coordinating efforts to control small boats in the Channel is expected to be questioned by an influential parliamentary committee.
A report by the defence select committee, to be delivered shortly, will raise doubts over whether plans to put the Royal Navy in charge have been rigorously tested.
Continue reading...Home secretary rebuffs French claim UK immigration policy encourages people to risk dangerous journey
Priti Patel, the home secretary, has said Emmanuel Macron is wrong to say the UK’s immigration policy is encouraging people to risk their lives crossing the Channel from France.
In a further escalation of the row between the two countries, Patel has dismissed claims by the French president that Britain’s immigration system favours clandestine migration and does not allow for asylum seekers to seek legal ways into the country.
Continue reading...Rights charity Reprieve seeks answers from MoD over death of Abu Hamza al-Shuhail in Syria in October
Britain has been accused of reviving a policy of “targeted killing” after it emerged that the RAF had killed an arms dealer linked to Islamic State in a precision drone strike in Syria at the end of October.
Reprieve, a human rights charity, asked “what are the criteria” used to justify who can be targeted in a “track and kill” drone strike, and called on ministers to tell the Commons why this strike was deemed necessary.
Continue reading...Former senior officer says unsolved hack of MoD training school systems did not succeed but still had costs
A cyber-attack on the UK’s Defence Academy caused “significant” damage, a retired high-ranking officer has revealed.
Air Marshal Edward Stringer, who left the armed forces in August, told Sky News the attack, which was discovered in March 2021, meant the Defence Academy was forced to rebuild its network.
Continue reading...Unite union criticises ‘excessive’ figure while Labour says ‘Tory waste’ letting down taxpayers
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has come under fire after revelations that it has spent almost £13m on hire cars for staff this year.
A freedom of information (FoI) request by PA Media also showed that the Department for Transport spent more than £1.1m in the year to October, while other departments have spent tens of thousands of pounds. The total figure from responses to the FoI request was more than £14.2m.
Continue reading...MoD says small team of military personnel deployed after agreement with Polish government
Britain has sent a team of about 10 soldiers to Poland to help Warsaw strengthen its border with Belarus, where groups of migrants have been stranded attempting to cross into the EU.
The troops arrived on Thursday and are expected to spend a few days in the country, including visiting the border at the request of the Polish government to work out if they can repair or toughen the fencing.
Continue reading...Agnes Wanjiru’s family instruct law firm to demand answers over her death
The family of a young Kenyan woman allegedly murdered by a British soldier almost a decade ago plans to sue the Ministry of Defence to demand answers over her death.
The body of Agnes Wanjiru, 21, was found in 2012 after she reportedly went out partying with British soldiers at the Lions Court hotel in the central town of Nanyuki, where the UK army has a permanent garrison.
Continue reading...Commons spending watchdog says out of 20 projects, 13 were running late by a cumulative total of 21 years
The Ministry of Defence’s system of procurement is “broken” and is repeatedly wasting billions in taxpayers’ money, according to a scathing assessment by a watchdog committee of MPs.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said that the oversight in the department was so poor that it was unable to spell out what additional capability the country will get from an extra £16.5bn which was allocated by Boris Johnson last year.
Continue reading...Inquest in Kenya in 2019 concluded that Agnes Wanjiru, 21, ‘was murdered by British soldiers’
The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, is facing calls to launch an investigation into a possible cover-up after no one was held responsible for the alleged killing of a 21-year old Kenyan woman by one or more off-duty British soldiers.
John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, described the 2012 killing of Agnes Wanjiru, a sex worker, as “dreadful” and called for Wallace to “take this more seriously”.
Continue reading...Evacuation of employees, not contractors, ‘splitting hairs’, says HRW, warning of days left to save lives
Afghan employees who worked as contractors on UK aid projects fear for their lives after not being granted resettlement in Britain.
The Guardian has been in contact with four families who said they had been targeted by the Taliban because they worked for the UK government, and have now been forced into hiding.
Continue reading...Documents include details on HMS Defender in Ukrainian waters and possible Afghanistan plans
Classified defence documents containing details about HMS Defender and the military have been found at a bus stop, prompting an investigation from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The loss of the sensitive information was described “as embarrassing as it is worrying for ministers” by Labour, who are seeking reassurances that national security has not been undermined.
Continue reading...Analysis: Royal Navy ship sailing near Crimea may also be test of Beijing reaction to territorial reach
British ministers will have been under no illusions that the decision to sail HMS Defender into disputed waters off the coast of Russian-annexed Crimea would provoke a reaction from the Kremlin.
A dispute about whether warning shots were fired or not is beside the point – although if they were, they were miles out of range. Because even if the west considers Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, to be still part of Ukraine, the Russians do not and will act accordingly.
Continue reading...Campaigners seek inquiry into whether skills gained in UK were used to commit abuses in countries such as Bahrain, China and Saudi Arabia
The UK government has trained the armies of two-thirds of the world’s countries, including 15 it has rebuked for human rights violations.
An anti-arms trade organisation has called for an investigation into the use of UK military training by other countries to determine whether it has been used to perpetrate human rights abuses.
Continue reading...Creation of specialist cyber force and artificial intelligence unit in pipeline
A specialist cyber force of several hundred British hackers has been in the works for nearly three years, although its creation has been partly held back by turf wars between the spy agency GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence, to which the unit is expected to jointly report.
Continue reading...The Special Boat Service that stormed a tanker off the Isle of Wight is closely aligned to the SAS
The secretive Special Boat Service, which stormed a tanker off the coast of the Isle of Wight on Sunday evening and detained seven stowaways suspected of seizing it, is Britain’s elite military unit tasked with tackling terrorist and other localised, violent incidents at sea. Its origins date back to the second world war, and the Ministry of Defence refuses to say how many fighters it comprises or give any detail of its operations.
SBS operatives are trained to seize control of ships, tankers or rigs, typically by fast-roping down from helicopters. A similar operation in December 2018 saw the SBS take control of an Italian tanker that was subject to an attempted hijack by four stowaways near Tilbury in Essex, on the orders of then prime minister Theresa May.
Continue reading...Debt seen as stumbling block for release of British-Iranians including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has for the first time acknowledged that he is actively seeking to pay a debt to the Iranian government that could finally help to secure the release of British dual nationals including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Wallace assured lawyers acting for the families that the government was exploring every legal avenue to pay the debt, which for the first time he formally acknowledged the government owes.
Continue reading...Eight Fijian-born soldiers went public five months ago and have yet to receive positive response
Eight Fijian-born soldiers who served with the British army in Iraq and Afghanistan are seeking a judicial review against the Ministry of Defence and Home Office, saying bureaucratic errors have made them illegal immigrants in the country for which they once served.
The group of Commonwealth veterans have been forced to go to court five months after first going public because neither Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, nor Priti Patel, the home secretary, have yet responded positively to their initial complaint or properly reviewed their cases.
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