British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday denied any intention of his government to send military instructors to Ukraine, clarifying after his defense minister’s statement that British military instructors will train Kyiv’s troops directly on Ukrainian soil, Reuters reports.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, British Defense Minister Grant Shapps, who was appointed to the post last month, said he wants to send military instructors to Ukraine, in addition to training Ukrainian soldiers in Great Britain and other Western countries. He also said that there is an opportunity to offer training programs for the Ukrainian army directly on Ukrainian territory, and that he had a discussion about this with the command of the British army.

“Today I am talking about the approach of education, as well as in Ukraine itself. Especially in the west of the country, I believe that now there is an opportunity to bring more things into the country,” added the interviewed minister.

A few hours after the publication of the interview, Prime Minister Sunak stated that there is no intention to send military instructors to Ukraine in the near future. “What the defense minister has said is that one day in the future it will indeed be possible to hold some of these exercises in Ukraine,” Sunak said in a statement to the media at the start of the Conservative Party’s annual convention in Manchester.

“But this is about something long-term, not here and now. No British soldier will be sent to fight in the current conflict” between Ukraine and Russia, Sunak added.

After the British Defense Minister’s statement, former Russian President Dmytro Medvedev, now number two in the Security Council of the Russian Federation, threatened that British troops in Ukraine would be legitimate targets for the Russian army.

As part of the military aid provided to Ukraine to support the war with Russia, in addition to weapons and ammunition, Great Britain provides the Ukrainian army with five-week training programs. Last year, the British Army trained about 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers in these programs and plans to continue training the same number of soldiers.