Free cigarettes provided to UK-trained Ukrainian soldiers under Ministry of Defense contract

Ukrainian soldiers trained in Britain have been provided with free cigarettes under a deal brokered by the Ministry of Defense, despite the dangers of smoking.

This agreement allowed tobacco donated to the military to be imported duty-free as part of rations.

It comes after complaints from soldiers that cigarettes were too expensive in the UK and supplies were too short to meet demand at training bases.

A pack of 20 cigarettes in Ukraine has cost $1.70 since last December, compared to $15.67 in the UK.

The deal was negotiated by then-Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, in collaboration with his Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksiy Reznikov, amid claims that cigarette shortages were hindering soldiers' ability to focus on training and that lack of amenities posed a risk to morale. We made it happen. .

The deal was struck shortly after the first Ukrainians arrived for training in the summer of 2022, but was only revealed now, days after Rishi Sunak secured a second reading of a bill banning smoking for a whole generation of young people.

Cigarettes provided as rations to soldiers

Mr Wallace and his advisers have eased obligations with the Treasury and resolved legal risks with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which is leading the government's public health campaign to reduce smoking.

The cigarettes were donated by international tobacco companies and given to soldiers as part of their rations. Advice was also provided on the risks of smoking and healthier alternatives such as vapes and nicotine pouches. The source emphasized that cigarettes are not provided to non-smoking Ukrainians.

“It’s fair to say that smoking would be less of a threat to the lives of these brave soldiers than fighting Putin’s illegal aggression,” said a source familiar with the deal.

A Ukrainian government source told The Telegraph: “It was a very long, complicated bureaucratic process, but we did it. It was very well received by our soldiers.

The Ministry of Defense's Operation Interflex, which has so far trained 60,000 Ukrainian soldiers, began in July 2022, with the first soldiers deployed to a number of bases across the UK. Last March, tobacco giant Philip Morris, which has a factory in Ukraine, donated 500,000 packs of cigarettes to the Ukrainian military.

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