The UK has revealed for the first time that it is operating a network of military maintenance facilities inside Ukraine to repair battle-damaged equipment and return it to Ukrainian forces more quickly, the Ministry of Defence said.
According to the government, four sites are already operational and a fifth is planned. The facilities are run under MOD contracts by UK companies employing both British and Ukrainian staff and are designed to repair armoured vehicles, artillery systems and other equipment used by Ukrainian forces.
The sites repair equipment including UK-supplied CVR-T armoured vehicles, Husky support vehicles and L119 light guns, as well as former Soviet-era systems still used by Ukraine’s armed forces. They also support the AS-90 artillery systems donated by the UK, while collaboration with Swedish partners allows the facilities to help maintain Archer artillery systems.
The UK has been working to establish the repair infrastructure since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Locating maintenance and overhaul facilities inside the country allows damaged equipment to be repaired locally rather than being transported abroad, reducing repair timelines and returning vehicles to Ukrainian units more quickly.
British engineers are working alongside Ukrainian personnel at the facilities to maintain and repair military equipment. Defence Minister for Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard visited one of the sites during a trip to Ukraine this week, where he met staff working to restore damaged vehicles and equipment for frontline use.
“While the world’s attention is focussed on conflict across the Middle East, the UK is standing firmer with our friends in Ukraine,” Pollard said. “From the factory floor to the frontline, the UK is standing with Ukraine. Our pioneering facilities are helping keep Ukraine’s defiant Armed Forces in the fight against Putin’s brutal attacks, and British firms are boosting long term industrial production in Ukraine and partnering with Ukrainian companies to benefit both our nations.”
During the visit, Pollard also led the seventh UK-organised defence trade mission to Ukraine, described by the government as the largest in the series so far. The mission involved more than 80 delegates and 55 companies, including a record 35 British firms, alongside international partners from Estonia, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
The mission was organised by ADS Group, the UK trade association for the aerospace, defence, security and space sectors, and focused on strengthening industrial cooperation between British and Ukrainian defence companies.
The UK and Ukraine also signed an agreement under Programme Lyra, a technology exchange initiative agreed between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in June 2025. The latest project will involve collaboration on UK electronic warfare technology integrated with Ukrainian platforms to improve Ukraine’s military capability.
The trade mission also marked the UK’s move towards a permanent presence supporting British industry in Ukraine. Plans include the opening of a new British Business Centre in Kyiv intended to deepen industrial cooperation and investment between the two countries.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the UK has committed more than £21 billion in support to Ukraine, making Britain one of Kyiv’s largest bilateral donors.
Support for Ukraine is one thing the last government got right and it’s been continued by the current government but with the US becoming increasingly hostile we need to start pilling in more pressure to finish this war. Going after shadow fleet tankers is the only thing we have left to do.
To be fair, there is very little the current government has got right apart from this policy.
Lets ignore the dozen+ u-turns to be even more fair
Sensible objective actual debate is the aim here over childish unrelated whataboutary at every turn, which sadly seems to be your only ‘contribution’ to this forum. No doubt you are congratulating yourself for taking such important subject matter to the lowest common denominator for one presumes the mere performative act of unquestioning distraction. Better ways to get noticed, having constructive opinions on the matter at hand for a start.
Ah its the twat of great distinction again
I attract you clowns like a bad smell apparently
All I need is the Islamist lover spock to show up and it will be a perfect set
You really need a hobby I think, but even if you don’t I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend 😘
Don’t bother replying I won’t be indulging you for the rest of the day, thanks champ
I see the racist is still babbling nonsense again.
I live rent free in your head 🙂
Is there really a need to spell out everything the UK is doing in and for Ukraine in the media? I think keeping most of it hush hush would be wiser. And giving the specific number of sites .. .now they’ll likely look for them ..so please don’t give out the addresses!
I suppose if the Russians think we are enemies number one and hate our guts we may as well be damed by them for what we are doing instead of them just making things up like us sponsoring Islamic terror attacks on them etc.
Grandstanding.
They cannot help the affliction, and it’s like they have a death wish.
Let’s poke Russia one more time while carrying on dismantling our own military, or if not that, certainly not expanding it.
No wonder Russia thinks Britain is actively engaged.
And people wonder why Russia retaliate in the Grey Zone?
Spot on.
I assume getting your retaliating in first is included in that then. We have been targeted well before the Ukraine war started.
We have, which makes it even worse.
Having the factories there isn’t the issue, I mean, UKSF is running around there as well. We are up to our armpits helping Ukraine and are public enemy number one for Russia because of it.
I hope we put our money where our mouth is, not just in funding Ukraine.
Yes, well said DM. 🇬🇧 needs to get its strength back snd quietly.
With all the bad press the government is getting at the moment, I’m not surprised by this announcement, even though the facilities themselves have been around for some time. They like to keep things like this in the back pocket to use as a distraction when needed.
The Russians would know about it anyway as the GRU are, sadly, more than capable to finding such stuff out for themselves. They would be able to spot where the damaged stuff was transported and see it coming back fixed via satellite as I bet they are watching the entire country in some detail. Then there is the online intelligence gathering as I bet they are aware that the are UK social media / phones active in Ukraine and any concentration of such data over a period of time would raise a red flag. Then there is hum-int. They will have people on the ground as well.
MoD keeping it secret only keeps the British people in the dark and frankly I think they need to know what we are doing to help the Ukrainians. People here are starting to take note and are getting worried. They need to be worried given to awful state of our armed services, but at the same time they will need to see that we are doing something right if they are to have hope. And hope matters if we are to respond as a nation…
Cheers CR
CR,
Agreed, GRU undoubtedly aware of the location of these facilities. The concern, however, may be that deliberate MoD publicity may raise this issue from a relatively lower level military to a higher level political status. Quite conceivable Mad Vlad would choose to inflict significant British casualties at multiple facilities as an object lesson, especially as a warning against British participation in a future peacekeeping mission. Hopefully, MoD has already mitigated risk w/ passive/active countermeasures … 🤔🤞
Hello mate,
Hope you well.
I agree your assessment of that risk, but you could look at from another perspective. If Mad Vlad hit one of these facilities before anyone in the UK knew about them I would suggest that the UK Government would take a even bigger hit at home politically and I am sure Mad Vlad would have been briefed on such an obvious potential ‘provocation’. So it might well be in the UK Government’s interest to go public at this stage.
My guess, is that the Russians are a) more focused on the Ukrainian energy supply sector to cause maximum stress on the civilian population, b) consider that any deliberate attack on British civilian workers might harden UK civil population against Russia, especially has recent polls in the UK suggest that a majority of people think we need to improve our defences and are worried about the threat. So there are risks for both sides.
My assessment is that the Russians don’t care enough to hit the these workshops, they’d rather hit Ukrainian energy supplies to try and break Ukrainian moral.
Personally I think it is to the UK’s credit that we are giving the Ukraine such support.
Cheers CR
CR,
Interesting alternative hypotheses. Presumably, one should hope the Orcs are too preoccupied w/ committing other other warcrimes in UKR to address this potential issue/threat. Pleased to learn polling may have revealed a change in sentiment of British public toward rearmament. Unfortunately, generally negative press coverage in the US of current Labour government defence and foreign policy. Initial denial of usage of Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford by UK was broadly not well received. Perhaps all parties should accept the counsel of “stay frosty”.
Well your government has spent the last year bad mouthing us. Reap what you sow.
Depends which press you read. Given the vast majority of Yanks are against the war it doesn’t track that they’re unhappy with the U.K. for not wanting to get involved in yet another illegal war.
But to be brutally honest, we stopped giving a flying f@ck what the USA thinks of us after you twice elected a racist rapist to the presidency. Not being liked by the USA is fast approaching not being liked by Russia, a badge of honour.
Stay frosty is sound advice mate,
As for the UK government limiting use of our bases, that has gone down well on this side of the pond. We haven’t forgotten that we followed the US into Iraq and got bogged down in a long drawn out conflict and that the Iraqi people are still dealing with the fall out from that war as is the West. We are still bombing IS for goodness sake. Two major wars have significantly contributed to the current awful state of the UK forces and frankly we need to stay out of trouble in order to rebuild our capabilities and conventional deterrent effectiveness or risk another war of national survival.
We also remember how the withdrawal from Afghanistan went, and although we should have been better prepared ourselves to get our people out the fact is after decades of fighting the West threw the Afghan people under the bus. Trump started the process, Bidden fluffed it and then Trump accused his allies of skulking in the rear! The US is the commanding power so we follow, and Afghanistan did not go down well here.
Fortunately, the the special relationship isn’t just about the politicians. Far from it, thankfully. Our respective militaries, intelligence services and security forces will be quietly getting along with each other. The UK has some very capable intelligence gathering assets in Cyprus, for example, and I bet the US and Israeli administrations would exploit any intelligence we are providing even if they don’t appreciate it. But I bet their armed services appreciate it. And that is the point. So long as our services and civil servants continue to cooperate and get along with reach other we can stand strong together.
Global politics and the rules based system is heading to hell in a hand cart and we are all going to regret it. We will all need our friends when the poop hits the fan and we should remember that our relationship is way more than the capricious sound bites and behaviours of politicians. After all, how many Presidents and Prime Ministers have there been since WW2!
Stay Frosty 🙂
Cheers CR
Well said mate.
Tend to agree. The Germans were talking about opening a factory to build tanks and fighting vehicles there, did that ever happen?
Hi Spyinthesky,
According to Google AI they have indeed already opened an amoured vehicle plant, but there is talk of more to come.
Cheers CR
Not all Ukrainians are batting for the same side, there has never been a shortage of Intel finding its way to to the Russian Authorities.
Hi Paul.
Yup, that is inevitable in war. There are always those who politically align with the other side. There were the Black Shirts in the UK during WW2 and it has been said that the Duke of Windsor passed stuff to the Germans in 1940…
Cheers CR
What makes you think everything is being spelt out in the media?
Exactly, seems like we have lost some professionalism and discretion in the last few years. There’s no need to disclose this kind of information. Even if it does not include anything specific it officially acknowledges something that doesn’t need to be made public. Also, there is no need to comment on Russia’s military, tactics, or equipment. In many cases common sense has been replaced with over-zealous legalistic idealism. For example, we could have allowed the US to use British bases… but stressed that we were not involved in the actual strikes. Now, because of this approach and our depleted military, our enemies view us weak – and that is dangerous because it makes us a bigger target.
If they have been there for some time why announce it now? No problem with it but come on let’s think about the safety of anybody who is there!
Grandstanding. Look how great we are while we cut our own military.
I’m sure Ukraine is more than happy to have this announcement made(NOT)
£21b spent in the scheme of things is a spit with what mad Ed etc are throwing about!
With the Straights of Hormuz closed ( I think, for the most part?) at what point does he allow us to use our own gas fields rather than importing in Qatari LNG? I read that our gas can last a week?
No chance mate! His missus can’t miss out on all those green contracts can she.
At a guess, because there is credible intelligence that the Russians know about them now?
I rather they did more and said more than did less and said less. For a government that seems to have a hard time distinguishing reality from its own rhetoric, that is as good as it gets.
I’d humbly offer that we “did [a lot] more” and “said [a lot] less” aa a better choice most times. Talk more afterwards.
My take on this announcement is that the MOD (1) felt they had to show they were doing something, anything, somewhere, and (2) they’ve got their eyes on that soviet era artillery as a cheap option for its next-generation Mobile Fires Platform artillery system.
James, MoD is buying Boxer RCH-155 for its MFP artillery programme.
Graham, I really do not think that James was being serious!!
What a stupid thing to publicise.
Who is that aimed at?
The MOD. ” Loose lips sink ships. ” Some things should be left quiet rather than painting a big target on them. It wasn’t aimed at UKDJ reporting, more at the priapic grandstanding of politicians who won’t suffer missile attacks on them. Sorry for any confusion.
Not really. Four facilities are operational and a fifth is being worked on. At this point it’s a fair bet that the Russian’s know about it, and it’s better for us to break the story and control the narrative than let the Kremlin spin it to their advantage.
Couldn’t agree more, Dern.
We are getting into an increasingly obvious and necessary propaganda war with Russia that also means limiting our enemy’s opportunity for propaganda wins. For the British people to wake up one morning to find British civilian workers had been killed in Ukraine supporting the Ukrainian war effort that they didn’t know about would be a very difficult moment I think.
Cheers CR
I can understand some of the propaganda value of that view, even if its some misinformation, but Ukraine needs to seriously be on top of getting the Russian forces out of its own country and being able to shoot down what’s coming over their fence! If that’s happening, great. Long may it continue until its finished. 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇦🇺
I think it was a big mistake not to declare a no fly zone in the first week of the Russian invasion. Something else is that we guaranteed the independence of Ukraine Back in the Day; so anything we do in supporting that is right and noteworthy. Anything the Russians do against us directly (or in any form ) is (arguably) a war crime. We are simply doing what the Russians themselves signed up for.
Fair point, that.
If nothing else it builds a nice pool of skills for if and when we get some kit that needs fixing. Avery’s ye another total skill degradation
This has been going on for quite some time as I have an old friend over there, fixing weapons, ex REME bloke, Armourer. He did transfer from PARA REG so he is probably the least smart REME bloke I know, but on a very good contract!!!! ;0)