During Defence Questions in Parliament, Defence Secretary John Healey outlined the UK’s continued military assistance to Ukraine and NATO allies, warning that Russian aggression remains reckless and destabilising.
Responding to Conservative MP Andrew Cooper, who raised concerns about recent Russian incursions into Estonian airspace, Healey said “Putin’s incursions into NATO airspace are reckless and dangerous, and serve only to strengthen the unity of NATO.”
He confirmed that the UK has extended its Typhoon fighter contribution to the Eastern Sentry exercise until the end of the year, and stressed that “the UK remains the framework nation for the forward land forces in Estonia — we have almost 10,000 UK troops there.”
Healey added that NATO’s swift response demonstrated the alliance’s cohesion, noting he would meet Joint Expeditionary Force defence ministers in Norway later this week to discuss further coordination.
In a later exchange, Conservative MP Paul Davies asked about efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s air defences amid intensified Russian strikes against civilian and energy infrastructure.
Healey replied that “Putin’s aerial bombardment of Ukraine is cynical, illegal and targeted at civilians” and said the UK had delivered more than 200,000 rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition and hundreds of air-to-air missiles to Kyiv this autumn.
He also highlighted new joint industrial projects to sustain Ukraine’s defences, describing “a first-of-its-kind joint programme for the new interceptor drone, the Octopus, which will be produced in the UK and manufactured at scale.” Thousands of these drones, he said, will be supplied each month to help defend Ukraine’s skies, cities, and energy infrastructure.
The shared tech involved in the production of these devices can only be of benefit to both parties and to the detriment of enemies present and potential.
Excuse me? Eyebrows raised.
“We have almost 10k UK troops there.”
Who exactly to get to that figure?
I thought Cabrit in Estonia was a reinforced Battlegroup?
10k troops is more akin to a lightish Division.
Earlier in the year HMG made noise about allocating 4 Bde as well to theatre but I’m not aware it’s deployed, and it has no regular CS CSS of its own anyway.
Even with a screen elements from 11 Bde, 77 Bde, ASOB, any RAF SHF, AAC and SF elements as part of the Forward Land
Force, near 10 thousand???
I have been trying to figure out what the hell he was on about.. but he cannot even mean the entire set of European deployments as that comes to only 6000.. 10,000 is essentially around the average for entire UK forces worldwide deployed..maybe he misspoke and meant to say almost 1000…
I suspect so mate.
I’m sorry, it doesn’t install confidence when a nations own DS does that. How does one get 1k or 10k mixed up? It’s like me telling folk I live at No 50 when I actually live at No 5. If you misspeak, withdraw and apologise and no one would bat an eyelid.
I just checked the video and it wasn’t Hansard that got it wrong. 10,000 is what he said.
Yep I wonder if we will se plans to deploy 2 brigades set up on the back of this.. I’m pretty sure Boris just misspoke the name Type 32 and we ended up pretending we were going to order a new class of warships ever since…😂😂😂😂😂
I don’t know what to believe there if I’m honest mate.
T32 is logical, or just call them T31 B2.
I can only presume he got Rachel to do the figures.
Misspoke ? More like a slip that exposed the level of self-delusion similar to Gordon Brown’s claim he had “saved the World”.
Previous announcement were something like 1000 in Poland and Estonia combined, aand Pollard mentioned 700 in Estonia 2025, back in the Spring. While he may have slipped a decimal point (or a cog), Healey may also be referring to the troops that have been rotated there since 2017, including exercises, rather than how many are there right now.
My eyes near popped out my head when I read that too… what an absolute nonsense. Even after all these years, politicians are somehow *still* finding new ways to surprise me with how little they care or bother to learn on defence matters
I’d be proud and honoured, and I’m available! 😉
Unfortunately, I’m not a politician to be parachuted into such an exalted position, seemingly sometimes on a whim.
My favourite bit of politician-speak from this set of Defence Answers was when he said “[the questioner] is right to urge me to ensure we take an early decision about the replacement of the Hawk trainer. We will, because that is a long-overdue decision…”
😳
Kill the archer not the arrow. Send them gear that can hit these planes or missile production facilites within russia.
Just a waste to send them AA missiles that will never stop all the drones and missiles the russians launches against them
Oh so you mean pursue the tactics the Luftwaffe took in taking out the two main Spitfire production facilities around Southampton, I bet they thought they won the battle with that little manoeuvre but in reality just allowed the mostly intact jigs and machinery to be moved to elsewhere in all manner of undetectable locations and production was outstripping German production within a year. That’s with actual aircraft, imagine trying to cut out the production of drones many of which can be produced in garages, not to mention building other facilities well out of range of effective Ukranian attack as Russia did in WW2. You need to take out the drones as cheaply as possible as this drone does and where you can take out large drone production but if those are put in populated areas (as we know Russia does/would) how does Ukraine hit them without drawing international criticism and building up even more support for Putin. We have to be realistic.
Espionage from within.
At the end of the day, the russians are winning the military economic game. We keep sending expensive missile to shoot down cheap drones and the russians are perfectly fine with that. That large drone attack against the russian air bases that grabbed global attention is what we should be enabling. Your comparison to WW2 is nonsensical since missile and aircraft production are much more expensive and complicated then they were back then. You think russia would be able to quickly replace or fix a damaged aircraft or missile production line like back then? Especially since they are having a harder time getting high tech parts and electronics thanks to the sanctions
10k, 6k, 12k there or not deployed over there in Estonia, 000000’s of rounds on AA ammunition, 00’s of AIr to Air Missiles and anti drone drones ! Oh wow fantastic news and feel so much safer not 😏
When the hell is someone in the UK press stop just reporting this garbage, grow a pair and ask the “Emperors New Clothes question” to our Rt Hon DS ?
“Dear DS
The U.K is the only NATO member with its entire nuclear deterrent assigned to NATO tasking, that ensures that we are the most publicly identified single target for direct Russian attack. So what exactly have you or your predecessors done in the last 4 years to defend the U.K from direct attack ? Oh and hot air doesn’t count, where’s our new Air Defence systems or anything else for that matter ?”
Yes I am p’d off 😡
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