Australian soldiers will take part in a training programme for the Ukrainian military: 70 soldiers will travel to the UK by the end of this week to begin training recruits for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the country’s Defence Minister Richard Marles said on Wednesday.
“Australian soldiers leave Darwin this week to join the training of Ukrainian recruits. A contingent of 70 Australian troops will be stationed at a training program site in the UK,” the defence chief said, noting that the Australian military intends to focus on training AFU soldiers in “basic infantry tactics in urban and forest environments”.
In a statement published on the official website of the Defence Ministry, Marles stressed that no Australian Defence Department personnel “will travel to Ukraine as part of this programme”.
Earlier, as part of military assistance, Australia sent to Ukraine 90 Bushmaster APCs, six M777 howitzers, 28 M113 armoured vehicles, anti-tank and other weapons. The total amount of funds allocated by Canberra to support Kiev amounted to about 655 million Australian dollars ($422 million), most of this amount – about $475 million Australian dollars ($306 million) – went to the purchase of weapons.
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