 DCUK-INTELWeekly public intelligence brief on UK foreign & security policies: For members of Declassified UK onlyIssue 50 – Week to 3 March 2022 EUROPE Russia/UkraineMilitary After Russia invaded Ukraine, the UK government said it would send a “further package of military support to Ukraine”. Boris Johnson said: “This will include lethal aid in the form of defensive weapons and non-lethal aid”. It was reported that support will include ammunition and anti-tank weapons which Defence Minister James Heappey “said had been put to good effect against Russian armour since the start of the invasion”. Defence secretary Ben Wallace said the UK would supply anti-air weapons to counter Russian jets. Russian tanks were destroyed by weapons provided by the UK. Ukraine’s Ambassador to London Vadym Prystaiko said the anti-tank weaponry provided by the UK – known as NLAW (next-generation light anti-armour weapon) – had been used to help the state defend itself against Russian forces. Johnson said “We will not fight Russian forces in Ukraine”. It was reported that “Heappey disclosed that the Ministry of Defence was working on plans to support a resistance movement and a government in exile if Ukraine was finally overrun.” Also reported from a defence source was that the UK has offered to conduct “logistics operations” to support the delivery of military equipment from other nations to Ukraine. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was also said to have organised an online donor conference on military aid. There was some confusion over one government policy. Liz Truss told the BBC she supported the idea of Britons going to fight in Ukraine. But Johnson reportedly said that the UK is not actively supporting British nationals volunteering to fight in Ukraine. And defence secretary Ben Wallace warned Britons against going. It was reported that a group of 10 special operations forces veterans were staging in Poland and preparing to cross into Ukraine. The group was said to be composed of six US citizens, three Britons, and a German, and are NATO-trained and experienced in close combat and counterterrorism. The UK said that “Royal Navy ships, British Army troops, and Royal Air force fighters are arriving on new deployments in eastern Europe to bolster NATO’s eastern front.” This included HMS Trent in the eastern Mediterranean, conducting NATO exercises, Challenger 2 tanks and armoured vehicles of the Royal Welsh battlegroup arriving in Estonia from Germany, and RAF Typhoon fighter jets flying from bases in Cyprus and the UK patrolling NATO airspace over Romania and Poland. The UK deployed an electronic surveillance aircraft to gather intelligence on Russian forces in Ukraine and Belarus. The UK reiterated its commitment to Ukraine joining Nato. Foreign minister Lord Ahmad said in parliament: “We fully support the partnership relationship between NATO and Ukraine, and we remain committed to the 2008 Bucharest Summit Declaration in which all NATO allies agreed that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance”. Foreign secretary Truss said the Ukraine conflict could last “a number of years”. Sanctions The UK announced an “unprecedented package of economic sanctions will leave no part of the Putin regime unscathed”, Liz Truss said. This involved “hitting more than a hundred companies and oligarchs at the heart of the Russian establishment with sanctions worth many hundreds of billions of pounds. Our targets range from Russia’s largest defence company and its second biggest bank to leading members of President Putin’s inner circle. This will deliver the highest economic cost the Kremlin has ever seen. We are freezing Russian banks’ assets in the UK, and preventing Russian companies from raising finance in our markets. We will prevent Russia from raising sovereign debt in the UK.” Further sanctions were then announced by the UK and other Western states. This included “ensuring that selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system. This will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally.” They also said: “We will step up or [sic – our] coordination against disinformation and other forms of hybrid warfare.” Still further UK sanctions were announced on 1 March. These included banning Russian ships from UK ports, restricting further UK individuals and entities from undertaking financial transactions with the Russian Central Bank and sanctioning Russia’s state-owned sovereign wealth fund and its chief executive. Questions were raised, however, about the time it was taking to impose the sanctions and over the number of individuals close to Vladimir Putin who had already had sanctions imposed on them. Other issues The UK government confirmed that a new cross-Whitehall “Government Information Cell” has been “set up to identify and counter Russian disinformation targeted at UK and international audiences.” The head of MI6, Richard Moore, claimed that “US and UK intelligence communities uncovered Putin’s plans for Ukraine”. “We exposed his attempts to engineer ‘false flag’, fake attacks to justify his invasion. We revealed his plans to assassinate Ukrainian leaders and senior officials”. Labour leader Keir Starmer said anyone in the party criticising Nato will be expelled from it. Human Rights Watch said the UK “should urgently ensure that anyone fleeing the conflict in Ukraine can find sanctuary in the country by temporarily waiving visa requirements”. The UK announced visa concessions allowing the family members of British nationals and of Ukrainians settled in the UK to apply for a free family migration visa but Ukrainians without a family connection to the UK and third country nationals are still subject to the normal UK visa restrictions. HRW said “the UK’s response falls behind that of its neighbours”. Belarus The UK also imposed sanctions on Belarus in response to its role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sanctions were placed on the Belarusian Chief of the General Staff and three other deputy defence ministers, as well as two military enterprises. Declassified revealed that two years ago the UK military was collaborating with the Belarusian armed forces. Latvia Latvian Defence Minister Artis Pabriks told a UK parliamentary committee that his country needed military assistance, in light of a possible threat from Russia. MIDDLE EAST Israel The UK government was asked in parliament about Amnesty International’s report citing human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians, and, what steps the government is taking to help ensure international law is upheld in the Middle East. It replied saying: “We do not agree with the use of this terminology. Any judgment on whether serious crimes under international law have occurred is a matter for judicial decision, rather than for governments or non-judicial bodies. As a friend of Israel, we have a regular dialogue on human rights.” Saudi Arabia Exercise Cobra Warrior, which would have seen Saudi fighter jets training in the UK this month, was cancelled at short notice. AFRICA Tunisia The UK ambassador to Tunisia, Helen Winterton, discussed enhancing military cooperation with the country. It was reported that this included discussions on training, exchange of experiences, detection of anti-personnel mines and peacekeeping missions. Cameroon The UK is spending £250,000 building a “bespoke military skills facility” in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon – a dictatorship. The project is funded from the cross-Whitehall Conflict, Stability and Security Fund. The UK is also spending another £250,000 on building a training village in Salak, in the far north of Cameroon, for the Battalion d’Intervention Rapide (BIR). Uganda The British army delivered logistical and engineering training to Ugandan troops at Gadafi Barracks in Jinja. Other recent training has included “teaching patrol skills and support weapons.” The UK had previously suspended its support for Uganda’s security forces following their crackdown on opposition activists and alleged vote rigging by Uganda’s dictator Yoweri Museveni. MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE Asked in parliament, the government refused to say how it would spend £1.1bn allocated to new equipment for the UK special forces. The government was asked in parliament if it will send observers to attend the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – Meeting of States Parties due to be held in Vienna in July 2022. It replied: “The Government does not believe the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will bring us closer to a world without nuclear weapons. The UK will not sign the Treaty and will not be sending Observers to the First Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW.” The government told parliament it was “too early” to say what the cost of the UK’s new nuclear warheads will be. Questioned about a series of loyalist paramilitary murders in Northern Ireland during the 1990s, defence minister Leo Docherty said: “It is of profound regret that stolen military weapons and ammunition were used in some of these attacks.” Catch our member exclusive brief each Thursday Would you prefer a denser report every fortnight, or do you prefer being updated weekly? 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