Britain announced on Saturday that it would hand over six underwater drones to Ukraine to help it neutralize Russian mines off its coast and train its military to operate them, AFP, DPA and Agerpres reported.

These “light and autonomous devices are designed for use in shallow coastal areas, capable of operating at depths of up to 100 meters below sea level to detect, locate and identify mines so that the Ukrainian Navy can defuse them,” the British Ministry of Defense said in a statement. statement.

“In the coming months, dozens of servicemen of the Navy of Ukraine will be trained to work with these drones, training has already begun for the first of them,” the department said. Training will be conducted by British and American specialists on the territory of Great Britain, DPA reports.

This new military aid comes as, according to the British Ministry of Defence, “Russia is turning food into weapons, destroying Ukrainian agriculture and imposing a blockade on the country’s Black Sea ports to prevent its exports.”

“Moscow’s cynical attempts should not achieve the goal”

Although some grain ships have been able to leave Ukraine under a UN-brokered deal, these operations “remain limited by underwater mines left by Russian forces along the Ukrainian coast,” the UK said.

British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said that Moscow’s “cynical attempts to buy up world food reserves” should not succeed.

In May, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a £300 million (€355 million) tranche of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, following an earlier plan of £450 million, including, among other things, the supply of missiles.

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