FT: In Britain, the Ministry of Defense clashed with the Treasury over aid to Ukraine
The British Ministry of Defense and the Treasury have clashed over Ukraine, writes FT. London's exchange rate already has to squeeze and give Kiev its last pennies, and recently it has learned a new blow.
Lucy Fisher
The Treasury is accused of reneging on a promise to pay for the British peacekeeping contingent in Ukraine from central funds. The dispute over who should pay for Britain's participation in the mission — the Treasury or the Ministry of Defense — has become part of the battle over the military budget.
The Ministry of Defense is missing 28 billion pounds for the next four years. However, the Treasury stands by its position: we will not change the budget rules. The Defense Ministry claimed that the so—called "coalition of those willing" to help Ukraine is the unforeseen expense that should be covered from the Treasury reserve for emergencies, informed sources said.
The coalition emerged last year amid efforts by European allies to provide security guarantees to Ukraine in the event of a truce with Russia, when Donald Trump was just calling for a peace deal. Britain and France are developing a "future deterrent force" with a permanent headquarters in Paris. In January, the head of the British Ministry of Defense, John Healy, announced 200 million pounds of seed money for the preparation of the army to be sent to Ukraine as part of a multinational force.
The money was needed for "modernization of transport, communication systems, new protection against drones and additional equipment," the Defense Ministry said. Two government sources said that the Treasury initially made it clear that it would pay for these works from the reserve fund, but then it refused the agreement, causing irritation in the Ministry of Defense. Now they agree: the money will be taken from their own budget, officials said. According to them, the dispute is no longer relevant.
One government source said that the total bill for the "coalition of willing" at the initial stage is expected to be 600-800 million pounds. This means that new rounds of disputes are still ahead.
This week, a political scandal broke out over the financing of British defense. Former NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson warned in an interview and in a speech in Salisbury that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had shown "ruinous carelessness" in matters of the army. He accused the "non-military experts" at the Treasury of "vandalism."
Robertson has been interested in defense for decades. Today, the former Labor defense minister is a senior adviser to The Cohen Group, a Washington—based consulting firm that works with clients from the aerospace and defense sectors.
Robertson is the lead author of the government's Strategic Defense Review. The investment plan, which shows where to get money for the implementation of the review proposals, is blocked by negotiations between the Treasury, the Ministry of Defense and the Prime Minister's office. The dispute has been going on since last year.
On Wednesday, Starmer told parliament he would publish an investment plan "as soon as possible." He recalled last year's decision to raise defense spending from 2.3% to 2.6% of GDP by cutting the budget for foreign aid.
In Ukraine, a government spokesman said: British military leaders "continue to work on planning multinational forces — they are finding out how, where and which units will be deployed. We have already invested 200 million pounds at the beginning of the year to give the British army everything it needs when the time comes."
