Tag: Ministry of Defence

RAF Typhoon fighter jets and Army Air Corps Apache helicopters concluded a training exercise off the coast of Estonia on Friday, in which they practiced firing their heavy machine guns and advanced missiles at targets in the sea.

The exercise, named Spring Tempest, was conducted jointly with Estonia and France and demonstrated the ability of the UK and its Allies to deliver precision strikes while operating deep in enemy battlespace.

The Apache attack helicopters, from the Army Air Corps Aviation Taskforce (1AAC ATF), were armed for their mission with Hellfire missiles, CRV7 rockets and 30mm rounds, while the Typhoon jets, from 140 Expeditionary Air Wing (EAW), were armed with Paveway IV laser guided bombs and 27mm armour piercing rounds.

Wing Commander Scott MacColl, 140 Expeditionary Air Wing’s Commanding Officer, said:

Exercise Spring Tempest has been an outstanding opportunity to integrate effects across the Land, Maritime and Air domains. Working with the Royal Navy and Army has allowed us to exercise high-end skill sets, while enhancing interoperability across a broad range of NATO allies.

The flexibility to operate effectively across differing environments demonstrates our key contribution to collective defence and regional security. As important, the scale of this exercise further develops Alliance cohesion and cross nation understanding.

The mission was supported by a Forward Air Controller, operating nearby from a Wildcat helicopter. Both types of helicopter worked in tandem with ground-based personnel to refuel and rearm before transiting back to the mission area.

This training follows on from Exercise Spring Storm, the largest annual military exercise in Estonia involving the UK-led NATO enhanced Forward Presence (eFP), which saw more than 1,500 UK soldiers training alongside more than 10,000 personnel from 11 NATO countries.

At last year’s NATO Leaders Summit in Madrid, the UK committed to increase the size of its contribution and capability, with this year’s exercise marking the first time the UK has conducted a brigade-level deployment to Estonia – involving hundreds more personnel being deployed from the UK.

Land-based training exercises saw UK soldiers, deployed to bolster the eFP under the Army’s Operation CABRIT, as well as tanks and armoured vehicles, practicing live firing in a series of different scenarios, conducting trench assaults, reconnaissance missions, vehicle manoeuvres, and combined arms warfare.

Commander of Op CABRIT, Brigadier Giles Harris, said:

Exercise Spring Tempest clearly demonstrates the successful integration of our land, aviation and air capabilities. It comes as we end Exercise Spring Storm 2023, the largest iteration of its kind with some 14,000 personnel taking part across land, sea and air domains. Through rigorous training with our allies, we prove we are a capable, flexible multinational force.

The Royal Navy’s amphibious assault ship, HMS Albion, carrying approximately 550 sailors and Royal Marines, has joined up with the RAF and the Army to take part in the NATO training exercises happening in the region. During recent weeks, she has landed marines from 45 Commando for a dawn beach raid exercise.

The ship and crew also supported a further training exercise last weekend off the coast of Paldiski, which saw the three services testing their capability in a fully-integrated manner. Typhoon jets, Apache, and Wildcat helicopters flew in a tight, programmed formation overhead, as the Royal Marines transported soldiers from the Queen’s Royal Hussars and their 62-tonne main battle tanks from the shore into HMS Albion’s dock.

Captain Marcus Hember, HMS Albion’s Commanding Officer, said:

It is not often the Royal Navy, RAF and Army are in the same place at the same time with major assets.

This gave us the opportunity to test how we can work together at sea, proving again the Royal Navy can move Army heavy equipment on and off a shoreline whilst being safely covered air by the RAF and Army Air Corps.

The eFP provides a continuous NATO presence along its eastern border, with deployed troops acting as a deterrence against any aggression towards the Alliance’s borders.

The RAF has also been bolstering NATO’s presence, currently leading the Alliance’s air policing mission in Estonia with more than 200 personnel based at Amari Air Base, which has led to several air intercepts of Russian aircraft by RAF fighter jets.

The operational activity underlines the UK’s commitment to European security, which is vital to delivering on the Prime Minister’s priority of growing the economy.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Foreign, Commonwealth, & Development Office (FCDO) Minister of State, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, met with global leaders in Singapore for the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue this week.

Their participation reconfirms the UK’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific, a region critical to the UK’s economy, security, and our commitment to an open and stable international order.

The Shangri-La Dialogue is Asia’s foremost defence summit for global leaders and ministers to debate the region’s most pressing security challenges with a series of plenary sessions and bilateral discussions.

During the Shangri-La Dialogue, the Defence Secretary addressed the audience, alongside ministers from Canada and the Philippines, focused on ‘Building a stable and balanced Asia-Pacific’ and regional cooperation.

In March, the Prime Minister announced a deal to join CPTPP – a trade bloc in the Indo-Pacific, which will now have a total GDP of £11 trillion. During his visit to Japan for G7 last month, almost £18 billion of new investment into the UK from Japanese businesses was announced by the Prime Minister, creating more well-paid jobs in the UK and helping grow the economy.

This is in addition to a new semiconductor partnership with Japan and critical minerals partnerships with Canada and Australia; and the Global Combat Air Programme with Japan and Italy, announced last year.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said:

It has been a great pleasure to meet with my counterpart Dr Ng Eng Hen here in Singapore and to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue to meet defence ministers from across the Indo-Pacific. Singapore is a trading powerhouse that we have much in common with.

We understand that Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security is indivisible and that upholding the rules-based order is a collective effort – that is why organisations like ASEAN are so important. This is why we have applied to join ADMM+, a demonstration of our commitment to strengthening defence and security in the Indo-Pacific. We are committed to promoting prosperity and stability in the region.

Minister for the Indo-Pacific, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, said:

Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific prosperity and security are tied more closely together than ever before, and we must work jointly to protect the rules-based international order to safeguard our futures.

The UK is committed to playing a full and active role in ensuring a free, safe and open Indo-Pacific, working with partners in ASEAN and beyond to tackle global challenges.

Arriving in the region earlier this week, the Defence Secretary met with his Singapore counterpart, Defence Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen, on Friday. They discussed continued bilateral cooperation and our partnership through important groups including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA).

The Defence Secretary also held a series of bilateral meetings while in Singapore, with ministers from China, Indonesia, and New Zealand.

On Friday, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace visited the FPDA wharf at Sembawang Naval Installation where he met Commanders from Australia and New Zealand.

The UK and Singapore are both members of the FPDA, now in their 52nd year. Founded in 1971, the FPDA are a series of agreements between Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the UK, with the group seeking to strengthen defence and security in the Indo-Pacific and work together to promote stability in the region. Defence Ministers from FPDA nations met earlier today to discuss continued collaboration and strengthening the group.

In 2021, the UK was delighted to become an ASEAN Dialogue Partner, a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia, including Singapore. The UK’s Dialogue Partner status was formalised in August 2021, the first dialogue partner ASEAN has included in 25 years.

That same year, the UK deployed Royal Navy ships HMS Spey and HMS Tamar to the Indo-Pacific, following a successful Carrier Strike Group deployment, as part of the UK’s commitment to regional peace and stability. The Prime Minister recently confirmed that the UK’s Carrier Strike Group will return to the region in 2025.

The summit follows a busy few months, during which the UK has taken concrete actions to take advantage of post-Brexit freedoms with an ambitious trade policy in the Indo-Pacific.

More than 1.7 million British citizens live in the Indo-Pacific and our trading relationships with the region were worth over £250bn in 2022. By 2030, the Indo-Pacific is expected to account for more than 40% of global GDP and the region is critical to the UK, to our economy, our security and our values, upholding the international rules and norms that underpin free trade, security and stability. With 60% of global trade passing though shipping routes in the Indo-Pacific, security there has a direct impact in households in the UK.

Ukraine’s defence minister personally thanked Defence Secretary Ben Wallace for the UK’s continued military support for Ukraine, during a series of meetings held this week in Kyiv.

The UK Defence Secretary met his counterpart, Oleksii Reznikov, during a visit to Kyiv, after the UK became the first country to provide Ukraine with long-range precision strike capability this month.

The Defence Secretary’s visit came after the Prime Minister hosted President Zelenskyy at Chequers last week and again met him at the G7 in Hiroshima on Sunday.

During a bilateral meeting, the defence ministers discussed how long-range strike capabilities would further help the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to achieve victory against Russia.

Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, said:

I was pleased to visit Kyiv again to meet with my good friend Oleksii Reznikov to discuss the next stages of Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s illegal invasion.

The UK continues to offer both equipment, training and advice to Ukraine’s armed forces.

I also visited some of the military commanders who have been so bravely pushing back Russian forces.

The ministers also discussed Ukraine’s ambitions to join NATO, ahead of the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius.

Earlier this month, the Defence Secretary announced to the House of Commons that the UK would donate Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine in direct response to Russia’s continued brutality, and its continued long-range missile strikes against civilian targets in Ukraine. Storm Shadow is an advanced weapon system with the capability to strike targets at a range of over 250km with precision, and will add to the list of capabilities that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are able to deploy to defend themselves against Russian military aggression in Ukraine.

The donation was the latest milestone in the UK’s continued military support for Ukraine, having previously paved the way for the supply of modern Western main battle tanks with the Prime Minister’s commitment to supply a squadron of Challenger 2 tanks.

The UK Government provided £2.3 billion of military aid to Ukraine in 2022 and the Prime Minister has committed to match this in 2023, having already supplied more than 10,000 anti-tank missiles, 100,000 rounds of artillery ammunition (with 100,000 more planned for supply in 2023), more than a hundred anti-aircraft guns, self-propelled artillery, and trained more than 15,000 AFU recruits, with support from our Allies.

The UK and Czechia have strengthened defence export prospects as new Defence Minister James Cartlidge visited the International Defence and Securities Technologies Fair (IDET) in Brno today [Thursday 25 May].

Visiting stalls from some of the UK’s key Defence companies, including SUPACAT, Marshall Land Systems and BAE Systems, Cartlidge discussed how the UK defence industry can further support the Czech Armed Forces through defence exports and government-to-government support.

Meeting with senior government officials, Cartlidge outlined how the UK would continue to support Czechia, building on a long-standing defence and security partnership between the two nations.

Czechia is about to complete negotiations to sign a contract with UK-based defence company, SUPACAT, for 24 High Mobility Transport (HMT) vehicles for their Armed Forces, known in the British Army as the JACKAL series of reconnaissance and long range patrol vehicles. The UK has been producing these vehicles for more than ten years, with contracts delivering on the Prime Minister’s priorities to grow the economy and support UK jobs.

Minister for Defence Procurement, James Cartlidge, said:

We have a strong defence relationship with our Czech counterparts, standing firm together against Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, as part of NATO.

Building on this existing partnership, we remain committed to ensuring we continue to work together, offering the best of British industry to support the military capabilities of our close NATO Ally.

The strong defence partnership between the UK and Czechia is showcased by the British Military Assistance Training Team (Czechia), in place for 23 years and jointly delivering UK thought leadership and career and tactical training courses to 15 countries across the region, including Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia.

Czech and British soldiers have served alongside each other for more than 20 years in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as (under EU and UN mandates) Mali and elsewhere in Africa.

Czechia is very much a central European standard-bearer for Ukraine, proportionally ahead of many larger European nations in having providing over £1.5 billion in lethal and non-lethal aid since the conflict begun.

Earlier this year, Czechia and UK were both part of a group of European nations that signed The Tallinn Pledge, committing to collectively pursue delivery of an unprecedented set of donations including main battle tanks, heavy artillery, air defence, ammunition, and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s illegal invasion.

The UK’s contribution to the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) Mission in Kosovo will continue until at least 2026, the Minister for the Armed Forces, James Heappey, has announced during a visit to the region.

During today’s visit to Pristina, he held conversations with Kosovo’s President, Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu, and Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, as well as discussions with Defence Minister Armend Mehaj, and Commander of the KFOR Mission.

Kosovo is an important partner, with the UK having been the first country to recognise its independence in 2008, and UK forces have been undertaking a key role in peacekeeping and bolstering security in the region for more than two decades.

Minister for the Armed Forces, James Heappey, said:

It was a pleasure to meet with the Kosovan President and Prime Minister today and to announce the UK’s further commitment to NATO’s Kosovo Force.

The extension of our commitment to KFOR underlines our unwavering commitment to supporting security in the Western Balkans region

The UK has been a key contributor to the UN-mandated NATO force since it first entered Kosovo in 1999 as a peacekeeping force to bring peace and stability following the conflict of the 1990s.

UK forces have worked to enhance KFOR’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance capability, significantly increasing the mission commanders’ situational awareness – ensuring the operation can provide a safe and secure environment for the entire population.

KFOR acts as one of the main security providers in Kosovo, with troops contributed by some 30 nations including Italy, Turkey, Poland and the US, as well as the UK. The UK’s contribution includes a battalion-sized high readiness Strategic Reserved Force based in the UK, ready to deploy at short notice.

The Minister also visited Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) on Monday, where he met the Minister of Defence, Zukan Helez; the Chief of Armed Forces General Senad Masovic; Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josip Brkic; as well as the Commanders of EUFOR and NATO HQ Sarajevo.

Discussions focussed on BiH’s progress towards Euro-Atlantic alignment and on the United Kingdom’s enduring support for the country’s security and sovereignty, including through joint training, the provision of equipment and the exchange of expertise.

The Minister gave the keynote speech at the Institute for Geopolitics, Economy and Security conference in Sarajevo focusing on the UK’s partnership with BiH on defence and security matters.

The meetings, conducted in MOD Main Building on 18-19 May 2023, formed part of our efforts to drive integration, and lead the cyberspace and electromagnetic domain.

Attendees included Major General James Roddis DSO, MBE, Director Strategy at Strategic Command, and Charles Forte, Chief Information Officer. The Italian delegation included Major General Giovanni Gagliano, Head of Division C4I Systems and Digital Transformation.

Topics discussed included cyberspace operations, training and education, data strategy, NATO and national doctrine, and artificial intelligence (AI) policy.

Major General Gagliano is leading a review of Italy’s cyberspace strategy, policy, and governance and spearheading work on cloud strategy.

Italy is highly valued as an ally to the UK and the rest of NATO. British and Italian Defence ministers signed a joint statement of intent on bilateral Defence cooperation in February; and Italy forms part of the UK-led Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP).

The concepts of driving integration and leading the cyber and electromagnetic domain will be incorporated in Strategic Command’s exhibition stand at Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) on 12-15 September 2023 at ExCeL, London.