By Burak Bir
LONDON (AA) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday ruled out any plan in the near term to send British soldiers to Ukraine.
Sunak said Defense Secretary Grant Shapps’ suggestion that British troops could train Ukraine forces in Ukraine is not for the "here and now," calling the story "misreporting."
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Shapps said that "eventually" he would like to get the UK's longstanding training of Ukrainians troops "in country" rather than in Britain.
The report sparked criticism from Moscow, as former President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday that British troops training soldiers in Ukraine would be a legal target.
Asked about Medvedev's comment, Sunak said: "What the defense secretary was saying was that it might well be possible one day in the future for us to do some of that training in Ukraine.
"But that’s something for the long term, not the here and now, there are no British soldiers that will be sent to fight in the current conflict. That’s not what’s happening. What we are doing is training Ukrainians. We’re doing that here in the UK," he added.
Meanwhile, James Heappey, minister of state for the Armed Forces, said on X that Telegraph’s original headline for the story (later changed) "was unhelpful" and not what Shapps actually said in the interview.
"Long term support to Ukraine will be delivered in free & secure Ukraine. Grant’s been to Kyiv twice in 2 months – he gets that support is needed after war as much as during," he said.