The military equipment Ukraine got from the United Kingdom is obsolete and/or out of commission, according to a piece of fake news carried by the Russian media. The United Kingdom is one of the NATO countries that, in the context of an impending Russian invasion, has provided Ukraine with deadly equipment in order to defend itself.
NEWS: “According to data made public by the Center for analysis of strategies and technologies, London has supplied Kiev with Javelin anti-tank systems (which, among other things, were also provided by the USA) as well as NLAW anti-tank missile systems. The latter is less powerful than the Javelin, and has been a British Army standard issue system starting 2009. The United Kingdom no longer needs these systems, experts say. The lifespan of these missiles is expiring. For this reason, sending these weapons to Ukraine is rather a means of getting rid of them.
[…] Until then the British stole 2 billion from the Ukrainian budget, selling warships the Ukrainians don’t need.
[…]
The Javelin systems from the United States, which the Ukrainian authorities have commended, couldn’t even hit a Soviet tank. The British weapons are delivered under the pretext of military cooperation between London and Kiev. In fact, Ukraine is being turned into a testing ground for the West.”
NARRATIVES: 1. The weapons the UK provided to Ukraine are out of commission. 2. The West sent Ukraine technically obsolete weapons, incapable of doing the job they were designed for. 3. The Ukrainians are paying top dollar for useless warships no one really needs.
BACKGROUND: In mid-January, the United Kingdom starting delivering anti-tank weapons to Ukraine against the backdrop of tensions generated by Russia’s military build-up on the Ukrainian border. British Defense Secretary, Ben Wallace, gave assurances that these weapons serve a strictly defensive purpose. A small number of personnel also arrived in Ukraine to train the military over a short period of time. According to the British side, if Ukraine gets invaded by Russian tanks, these systems will be deployed as part of its defenses. Kiev has specifically called on the United Kingdom to deliver the systems, considering Russia has amassed over 3,000 tanks on the Ukrainian border, and the frozen soil at this time of the year would facilitate an armored-vehicle assault.
After the West accused Russia of having rallied over 127 thousand troops outside Ukraine’s borders with a view to attacking this country, and particularly after diplomatic consultations failed to deliver any results in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna, more and more NATO member states have been supplying Kiev with military or non-military assistance, most of which has become the target of disinformation narratives promoted by the Russian Federation.
PURPOSE: The purpose of these narratives is to discredit the West’s initiatives aimed at discouraging Russian aggression towards Ukraine and to spread panic in Ukrainian society regarding Kiev’s inability to defend its own country.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: In fact, the lifespan on NLAW missiles is 20 years, according to the manufacturer’s website. In other words, if NLAW has been a standard military technology of the British army starting 2009, the oldest such systems are still going to be fully operational for another 7 years, although no one really knows the exact year of fabrication of the missiles London has now delivered to Kiev (whether it’s 2009 or more recently!). Therefore, the conclusions of the quoted experts, whom the Kremlin media doesn’t name, are false. The NLAW missiles can still be used by the Ukrainian army at least until 2029.
Equally untrue is the fact that the Javelin anti-tank systems “couldn’t even hit a Soviet tank”. The Javelin man-portable anti-tank missile system is one of the best-performing systems of its class in the world. It has been successfully fired 5,000 times in battlefield conditions, is has a high accuracy and can be easily handled by infantry troops. The system was developed towards the end of the Cold War in order to be used against Soviet tanks and the kind of equipment that the Russian army still uses, which is what got Moscow so worried. After obtaining the Javelin portable anti-tank missile systems from the USA, the Ukrainian army tested the weapon in a military exercise as part of a Joint Forces Operation mission. In December, 2021, the Ukrainian military were charged with hitting a target (a tank concealed in the trenches) from a distance of 1.5 km. “Despite the fact that the soldiers fired the weapon for the first time, the task was successfully accomplished, and the target was hit”, a press release reads.
According to the Russian state media, “the British stole 2 billion from the Ukrainian budget, selling warships the Ukrainians don’t need”. The article refers to a project aimed at consolidating the Ukrainian Naval Forces, but it is the USA, not the United Kingdom, that takes part in the project. In November, 2021, the Ukrainian port of Odessa received two Island-class patrol vessels. Ukraine received another two similar ships in 2019. The patrol ships are part of a wider security package for Ukraine worth 2.5 billion USD. The US State Department approved in 2021 the possible selling of 16 Mark VI patrol boats as well as military equipment worth some 600 million USD. Ukraine needs all the battleships it can get in the Black Sea, since after Russia illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula, it virtually lost its fleet. The consolidation of the Ukrainian Naval Forces has been condemned by Moscow, which uses its affiliated media to spread false narratives about Ukraine being turned into an experimental testing ground for the West. The pro-Kremlin media mentions nothing about the annexation of Crimea, an action condemned by the international community, or about Russia funding and supporting the conflict in Donbas, which killed 13 thousand people. These facts have not been presented to Russian-speaking readers or viewers, which proves that Russia actually turned Ukraine into a genuine testing ground.
