Ukraine: Military Equipment

Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, Operation Orbital is the long-standing military training package that we have offered to Ukraine for some years. Historically, it has only ever delivered defensive training. Now that we are looking at delivering military hardware to Ukraine, has the time came also to offer lethal training?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My noble friend is quite right in that Operation Orbital was conceived and has been delivered as a training mission, again with the objective of building Ukraine’s military capacity. As I said earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, this is part of a chain of events—and this is why we are moving on to assist Ukraine with acquiring other support for its military and naval capability. We wish to support an ally and a friend and partner, and make sure that we can use our expertise and skill to enable it to be stronger—that is what this composite package of measures is about.