The British Army has been preparing for an attack on the UK with soldiers practising vital life-saving skills in the military drill.
The ‘injured’ – played by both real people and medical dummies – had to be extracted and treated during the exercise at the SFRS National Training Centre in Cambuslang on January 17.
One high-level drill saw a simulated baby casualty rescued in a haunting dress rehearsal for potential military action against Britain.
Members of 144 (Parachute) Medical Squadron, based in Glasgow, took part in the drill alongside the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and the Scottish Multi-Agency Resilience Training and Exercise Unit (SMARTEU).
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said: ‘They provide vital dismounted first-line medical and secondary healthcare support to both soldiers and civilians all over the world, as part of the Global Rapid Reaction Force.’
The exercise comes amid heightened tensions on several fronts with Russia’s war in Ukraine showing no signs of ending.
Envoys from Ukraine, Russia and the United States met together for the first time last week but The Kremlin crushed any lingering optimism by vowing never to budge from its demand for the whole of the Donbas territory in eastern Ukraine.
Negotiators from the three countries were meeting in United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi – the first time they have held trilateral talks to try to end the war since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
The British Army has been preparing for an attack on the UK with soldiers practising vital life-saving skills in the military drill
One high-level drill saw a simulated baby casualty rescued in a haunting dress rehearsal for potential military action against Britain
The ‘injured’ – played by both real people and medical dummies – had to be extracted and treated during the exercise at the SFRS National Training Centre
But it was not clear if the bitterly divided Moscow and Kyiv delegations would even be in the same room.
In the meantime, Britain has been planning to seize more Russian oil tankers and use profits running into hundreds of millions of pounds to fund Ukraine’s fight against President Vladimir Putin, the Mail on Sunday revealed.
Senior Government sources told the MoS they expect each seized tanker in Russia’s sanctions-busting ‘shadow fleet’ would raise tens of millions – money that would be denied to Moscow and instead help Ukraine battle back.
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Starmer hails Trump’s climbdown on Greenland threats but warns of ‘hard yards’ to come
The dramatic change in approach comes after the Grinch, which was travelling from the Arctic port of Murmansk in northern Russia, was boarded last Thursday in a daring joint UK-French raid in the Mediterranean.
It was flying the Comoros flag, but French maritime authorities said a search of the vessel ‘confirmed the doubts as to the regularity of the flag’.
Defence Secretary John Healy revealed the UK navy had provided ‘tracking and monitoring’ support, with HMS Dagger monitoring the tanker through the Straits of Gibraltar.
The MoS understands that Britain’s special forces are on standby to target more of Russia’s shadow fleet, with UK sanctions imposed on 544 vessels.
Defence sources hope this high-stakes move will turn the tables on Russia with the money going to Kyiv’s defences instead of pouring into the Kremlin’s coffers.
Members of 144 (Parachute) Medical Squadron, based in Glasgow, took part in the drill alongside the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and the Scottish Multi-Agency Resilience Training and Exercise Unit (SMARTEU)
The exercise comes amid heightened tensions on several fronts with Russia’s war in Ukraine showing no signs of ending
But the UK approach is seen as high risk.
Defence experts believe Russia could retaliate by seizing British-flagged tankers or upping its own economic and legal warfare against the West.
Moscow has already explicitly said that using Russian assets to fund Ukraine is ‘outright theft’ and a ‘special kind of casus belli’ – a justification for war.
But the MoD has calculated the seizures are proportionate and fall within internationally agreed sanctions.
Trouble has also been brewing in more unlikely spheres with US President Donald Trump alarming officials with his bid to ‘buy’ Greenland.
The Republican president has said the US can do ‘exactly what we want to do’ in Greenland as part of the new deal with NATO that grants America total and permanent access to the semi-autonomous territory.
News of a framework deal came as Trump backed off tariff threats against Europe and ruled out taking Greenland by force, bringing a degree of respite in what was brewing to be the biggest rupture in transatlantic ties in decades.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday praised Europe for ‘being firm’ against the US President, who backtracked on his tariff threats amid fears of retaliatory ‘trade bazooka’ from his allies.
Vladimir Putin, pictured, is determined any deal over Ukraine will see him given the Donbas, even though his troops have failed to win it through nearly 50 months of grinding warfare
A French navy operation seizes a Russian oil tanker with the help of British intelligence on January 22
President Trump finally signalled a retreat on his Greenland demands during a rambling speech at the World Economic Forum (pictured)
Keir Starmer hailed Mr Trump backing off Greenland threats but warned of ‘hard yards’ to come
Prime Minister Keir Starmer hailed the climbdown, but warned of ‘hard yards’ to come.
The PM said it was a ‘good thing’ that the US president had dropped the idea of tariffs against Nato allies or seizing Danish territory by force.
He insisted he had navigated the past few days with ‘pragmatism’ and by ‘sticking to our values and principles’.
But Sir Keir cautioned that a ‘better way’ needed to be found of guaranteeing security ‘for Europe and across the globe’.
The comments, on a visit to Hertfordshire, came amid fears of rising tensions with the US on another front.
The UK – along with most other European powers – has signalled it would not be signing up to Mr Trump’s new ‘board of peace’.
