Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many UK (a) armed forces and (b) civilian personnel have been deployed to assist the government of Ukraine with the improvement of its command, control and communication capabilities in the last three years.

Since April 2009 the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has spent approximately £3.9 million supporting Ukraine through the Defence Assistance Fund and the Conflict Pool. Many of the activities funded through these mechanisms support command, control and communications capabilities (C3), to a greater or lesser extent, including through the provision of joint exercising, military education and contributions to NATO coordinated activities. However, the MOD is unable to breakdown this cost further to provide a figure for financial assistance specifically related to C3 alone.

Activities highlighted included the deployment of both UK civilian and military personnel to Ukraine and Ukrainian personnel to the UK. One such example from September of this year was the deployment of 41 personnel from the Light Dragoons to Ukraine to take part in EXERCISE RAPID TRIDENT, an annual US/Ukrainian multinational exercise aimed at enhancing interoperability and strengthening NATO partnerships. Elements of such exercise activity play an important role in practising C3 capabilities, but we are not able to give a figure for the number of personnel that have been deployed to Ukraine specifically for C3.

At the NATO Summit in Wales, we announced that the UK would lead a NATO C4 (Command, Control, Communications and Computers) Trust Fund for Ukraine and will contribute over €400,000 to this initiative. Work is now under way on the implementation of the Trust Fund.