Over 68,000 Ukrainian troops now trained in the UK

More than 68,000 Ukrainian personnel have completed military training in the United Kingdom under UK-led programmes, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed, the UK Defence Journal understands.

The figure was provided by Defence Minister Louise Sandher-Jones in a written answer to Labour MP Gordon McKee, who asked how many Ukrainian personnel have completed military training in the UK under British-led programmes. “Under UK-led programmes, over 68,000 Ukrainian personnel have completed military training in the UK,” the Minister said, as quoted in the answer.

The bulk of that training has been delivered through Operation Interflex, the programme launched in the summer of 2022 to put Ukrainian recruits, many with no prior military experience, through an intensive course in the fundamentals of soldiering, from weapons handling and battlefield first aid to trench warfare and urban combat, before their return to Ukraine. The training is conducted at sites across the UK by British instructors alongside personnel from partner nations including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Romania and Kosovo, making it one of the largest multinational training efforts undertaken on British soil.

Interflex built on Operation Orbital, the training mission that ran from 2015 until the full-scale invasion and put more than 22,000 Ukrainian personnel through training inside Ukraine itself, and the courses have evolved continuously since 2022 as instructors fold in lessons from the front line, with growing emphasis on drone threats, electronic warfare conditions and the realities of an artillery-dominated battlefield.

Specialist strands have run alongside the core recruit course, covering junior leadership, medics, marines and other trades, and the UK has separately trained Ukrainian fast jet pilots in the elementary phases of their conversion towards Western aircraft.