Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many United Kingdom nationals they have deployed on training and assistance projects in Ukraine.

Since the beginning of 2014, 36 UK nationals have been deployed to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, nine to support the EU in Ukraine and two to represent the UK’s technical assistance programme and humanitarian support in Ukraine. Additionally, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has had a Special Defence Advisor based in the Ukrainian MoD since 2004.

The Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), recently announced that the MoD would be providing further non-lethal support to Ukraine and up to 75 personnel would be based in Ukraine to deliver training and advice in logistics, medical, infantry and intelligence capacity building to the Ukraine Armed Forces. Some of these personnel are already based in-country to develop the training and numbers will increase as the elements of the training are delivered.

In addition the British Government is funding UK, Ukrainian and international experts to provide expert advice on economic and governance reforms in Ukraine through the £10million technical assistance programme to Ukraine.