All British troops will be withdrawn from Ukraine, as Russia could invade "at no notice," British Defense Minister James Heappey said Saturday, according to the Independent.
Appearing on BBC Radio 4's "Today," Heappey said "all of them will be withdrawn. There will be no British troops in Ukraine if there is to be a conflict there."
"We are now confident that the artillery systems, the missile systems and the combat air are all in place that would allow Russia to launch – at no notice – an attack on Ukraine," he continued.
"And on that basis, I think it is our responsibility to share with UK citizens our view that they should leave the country immediately while commercial means are still available."
Heappey also said sending a military presence to Ukraine would play into Putin's hands by presenting Russia as the victim of western menaces.

"Putin and his colleagues would very much like to be able to say what they may do is a consequence of Western aggression in Ukraine," he stated. "So it's very important to us, to everybody frankly involved, that we're very clear we won't play an active part in Ukraine."

Conversely, the Independent's report adds that Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative chair of the British Commons foreign affairs committee, has said Ukrainian armed forces are "increasingly capable" of defending themselves without NATO involvement.

"We're enabling them to have the ability to fight themselves, and having served in combat in countries around the world I can tell you that training local forces to fight for themselves is a significantly better defensive technique than putting troops in," Tugendhat says.

"The reality is that the Ukrainians already have some 145,000 in their army, they have another ... 100-odd thousand border guard reserves and people like that, so they have a significantly larger army even than we do and they are increasingly capable to defend themselves."

"Ukrainian armed forces are "increasingly capable" of defending themselves without NATO involvement." sounds great to stupid people, but means almost absolutely nothing. If the Ukrainians found a pointy stick they would be "increasingly capable" of defending themselves. Politicians are master tricksters.

Keith

Yeah they pull out and we send over 4 nuke bombers..... I have never been so disappointed and angered by our government. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea were all kept in check under the last administration. I seriously hope people wake the heck up and get our country back on track.

They said the same thing about the dope smokers in Afghanistan,lol.

I’ll bet the Ukrainians are cursing Bill Clinton for helping them get rid of their nukes. I doubt Putin would be doing this if the Ukraine still had them.
China is watching closely how the west, NATO and the USA is dealing with this. So is It possible this could just be a diversion for China to gobble up Taiwan , right after the olympics ? Remember the 1936 summer olympics were in Nazi Germany, and we all know what happened after that.

Just a thought, but why the heck were the British troops there in the first place if they are going to run at the first signs of a possible fight and make sure and state that they will NOT help Ukraine? Wouldn't it have been a lot cheaper to station those troops at home if they weren't there to provide at the least a show of force? Really must make all of Britians allies with British troops stationed there to help defend them feel comfortable. Kinda like our debacle in Afghanistan inspired confidence in all our allies.

They were likely teaching the Uke's how to use and deploy the weapon systems that they gave.
When the Russians take posession of it all in a couple weeks,they will have to figure it out for themselves.

The Russians let them keep Chernobyl.

The British are acting like they have another Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister. They want to appease Russia and don't have the balls for a fight. Europe expects us to save them yet again. They are users. Screw the EU.

Keith