Ukraine

Holly Mumby-Croft Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the update he has given today and for all the work he is doing, which is tremendous. I spent a very short time—just a few days—in Ukraine earlier this year, and I saw the devastation coming from the illegal invasion. He touched on Operation Interflex. Can he say any more about how that work is progressing?

[Mr Wallace]

I took the First Lady of Ukraine to Interflex last week. We have nearly 700 foreign troops helping, from Australia, New Zealand, most of Scandinavia and the Netherlands, alongside some 750 British troops. We trained 9,000-plus last year and are on course to do 20,000 this year. We have now expanded at the request of the Ukrainians to do not just basic training, but training non-commissioned officers. Just last week, we started platoon commanders courses. We are starting in the development of the low-level leadership that a country needs to start rebuilding its armed forces. We expect to continue to get requests. We have had another request to expand the training. We are absolutely in the middle of it. I will be having a conversation about that this afternoon and I hope to have more to announce to the House later.