Two Royal Navy minehunters, given to Ukraine last year, are still in UK waters because they can’t get into the Black Sea while the war continues.
But Ukraine’s Navy is using them to prepare for when they can start clearing the hundreds of explosives lying on the sea-bed. Sitrep’s Simon Newton has been watching some of that work on Exercise Sea Breeze in Scottish waters.
Mark Rutte has been appointed as the next NATO Secretary General, so we ask a former alliance insider what the job involves and what the new leader will bring to the role.
And another veteran shares the moment that made them. Professor Neil Greenberg tells Sitrep how hearing a radio interview by chance led him from young medical student to a world respected authority on military mental health via many Royal Navy ships and submarines.