The Daily Knight
- Oct 4, 2023

Confusion As UK SecDef Suggests Troop Deployment to Ukraine, War Expansion to WWIII

The Daily Knight

The newly minted British Secretary of State for Defence, Grant Shapps, appeared to announce an escalation in the proxy war against Russia on Saturday, telling the Telegraph newspaper that British troops could be deployed in Ukraine. His announcement followed a visit with Ukrainian leaders including President Zelensky.

The news, naturally, rankled Russian leaders with Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev stating: “(This will) turn their instructors into a legal target for our armed forces … understanding perfectly well that they will be ruthlessly destroyed. And not as mercenaries, but namely as British NATO specialists.”

Shapps – who has no military experience and is in fact a former software salesman – also floated the idea of using the British navy to defend commercial vessels from Russian attacks in the Black Sea.

“Particularly in the west of the country, I think the opportunity now is to bring more things ‘i

n country’ – not just training, but also we’re seeing BAE [the UK defence firm], for example, move into manufacturing in country, for example,” explained Shapps.

But his boss, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, poured cold water on his plans on Sunday, explaining: “What the defence secretary was saying was that it might well be possible one day in the future for us to do some of that training in Ukraine. But that’s something for the long term, not the here and now. There are no British soldiers that will be sent to fight in the current conflict.”

The almost escalation and swift row back has caused embarrassment for the UK government just as the governing Conservative Party begins its annual conference, this year in Manchester.