The UK agrees to come to Ukraine’s defence

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 23 January 2024 London’s new security agreement with Kyiv will benefit UK arms exporters, open the country further to western investors and increase “counter-disinformation” operations against Russia. A new agreement signed by Rishi Sunak and Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky on 12 January provides UK “security commitments” to Ukraine in the […]

Britain always seeks a profit in wars

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 5 October 2023 The Ukraine conflict is but the most recent case where UK policy-makers and weapons manufacturers seek commercial opportunities from devastating wars – often by arming both sides. When my colleagues Phil Miller and Matt Kennard visited the world’s largest arms fair in London last month, they found weapons manufacturers […]

The UK’s 83 military interventions around the world since 1945

Britain has deployed its armed forces for combat over 80 times in 47 countries since the end of the Second World War, in episodes ranging from brutal colonial wars and covert operations to efforts to prop up favoured governments or to deter civil unrest The British military has used or threatened to use military force […]

Britain’s proxy war on Russia

by Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 27 September 2022 UK participation in the Ukraine conflict is far-reaching, involving military and intelligence support, arms supplies and information warfare. But as Ukraine makes gains on the battlefield, Whitehall sees the war not only as a way to defend Kyiv but to ensure the strategic defeat of its rival, […]

Britain’s bumbling foreign policy over Taiwan and Ukraine

by Mark Curtis and Richard Norton-Taylor, Declassified UK, 8 June 2022 ‘Global Nato’. Help Taiwan ‘defend itself’. Recover the ‘whole’ of Ukraine. Promote ‘the free world’ – UK foreign policy under Liz Truss has become a series of empty slogans from a declining power desperate to remain a major one. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, foreign […]

Does the Ukraine war mean Britain should increase military spending?

by Paul Rogers and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 18 May 2022 Russia’s poor military performance in its invasion of Ukraine hardly demonstrates the need to increase the UK’s already large defence budget; if anything, it shows the opposite. Last week Russia celebrated Victory Day, marking the end of the Great Patriotic War, its name for […]

Ukraine neo-Nazis pictured with UK-made rocket launchers

by Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis, Declassified UK, 10 March 2022 Amid ongoing atrocities by Russian forces in Ukraine, far-right resistance groups appear to be in possession of UK-made anti-tank weapons. A Ukrainian neo-Nazi group in the besieged city of Kharkiv is said to have received anti-tank missiles made in Belfast. Images of the controversial […]