What did New Zealand pledge to Ukraine's training effort?
A retrospective on New Zealand's troop deployment announcement and a Latvian parliamentary declaration on Russia, both tied to the war in Ukraine.
What did New Zealand add to the effort to train Ukrainian forces? On 15 August 2022, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the deployment of 120 New Zealand troops to the United Kingdom, where they were to help train Ukrainian forces.
The announcement placed New Zealand's contribution in Britain rather than in Ukraine itself, as part of the training of Ukrainian troops.
A parallel signal from Latvia
A few days earlier, on 11 August 2022, the Latvian Parliament declared Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. The declaration was made over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Taken together, the two developments showed how governments far from the front line were responding to the war in the middle of August 2022: one through practical military training support, the other through a formal parliamentary declaration.
