The bill clearly states the purpose of sending troops to Turkey and the UK: for the servicemen to undergo training and receive the necessary equipment.
A screenshot of the bill «On sending units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to other states», registered on September 22, is being circulated online. Russians speculate that the proposal was made to attack Transnistria and, through Poland, the Kaliningrad region.
However, this is completely baseless speculation, because the purpose and procedure for sending some units abroad is clearly laid out in the document itself. The bill submitted by the president mentions sending warships with crews to Turkey and the UK, not Poland or Moldova. The document refers to the corvette Hetman Ivan Mazepa (Ada type) with a crew of up to 106 servicemen, which will depart for Turkey, as well as a number of vessels that will be sent to the UK and Ireland, in particular:
- mine countermeasure ship Cherkasy (Sandown type) with a crew of up to 39 servicemen;
- mine countermeasure ship Chernihiv (Sandown type) with a crew of up to 39 servicemen;
- mine countermeasure ship Mariupol (Alkmaar type) with a crew of up to 39 servicemen;
- mine countermeasure ship Melitopol (Alkmaar type) with a crew of up to 39 servicemen;
- mine countermeasure ship Genichesk (Alkmaar type) with a crew of up to 39 servicemen;
- the management of the division of mine countermeasure ships of the Navy Flotilla as part of the mine countermeasure headquarters, with a total number of up to 20 servicemen.
The explanatory note to the bill states that «the implementation of the law will also contribute to improving the process of receiving military equipment from partner countries, staffing the relevant units with personnel and the received equipment, the development and preparation for use of which requires long training cycles». Thus, the decision is in no way connected with Ukraine’s desire to attack Transnistria or the Kaliningrad region, but is only intended to ensure effective defense against the aggressor.
Recently, we have already refuted similar news that NATO is preparing a provocation in Kaliningrad: then propagandists cited the words of an outsider political figure from Germany, who, with the start of the full-scale invasion, moved to Russia and became a mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation.
