HMS Diamond. (Photo : Royal Navy)
The United Kingdom is sending a Royal Navy air defense destroyer, the HMS Daring, to the Black Sea with the two-fold purpose of warning Russia not to invade Ukraine, and to provide cover for "secret exercises" in Ukraine by troops from the British Army and British Special Forces.
Sources in the British Ministry of Defense were quoted by British media as saying the Type 45 or Daring-class destroyer that joined the Royal Navy in 2011 will transport 60 men of the Special Boat Service and Royal Marine Commandos to an unspecified location in Ukraine.
These elite units will help protect 650 soldiers of the British Army currently taking part in secret exercises somewhere in the Ukraine. HMS Diamond will lead a NATO naval task force that will form part of this training exercise.
UK Secretary of State for Defense Sir Michael Fallon said that with the deployment, "the UK is sending a clear message that we are committed to defending democracy across the world and support Ukraine's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity."
The deployment of HMS Diamond must also be seen in context of the UK's broader aim to defend Ukraine against Russia. British troops are currently training Ukrainian soldiers while over a thousand British Army troops will be deployed this summer to Estonia and Poland.
Eurofighter Typhoon multirole fighters of the Royal Air Force are headed to Romania in the coming months to bolster that country's air defenses against Russia.
Granting a lone Royal Navy warship no matter how well armed won't leave Vladimir Putin and his generals shaking in their boots, the deployment of this one warship is being seen in the British press as another symbol of the United Kingdom's renewed will to become more assertive and more militarily muscular on the world stage.
Its special friendship with the United States, which is the linchpin of NATO's resistance to Putin's ill-fated imperialism and Xi Jinping's grandiose dream of a new Chinese empire in Asia, will allow the UK to project power well beyond its limited means.
While quantitatively challenged, the British Armed Forces are feared for the high quality of its fighting men and equipment that will survive the modern battlefield.
This muscle flexing by the British Armed Forces is the latest in a growing series apparently aimed at reinvigorating a fighting force wracked by lack of funding and equipment.
