Photographs taken during a visit by Boris Johnson to meet Ukrainian soldiers being trained in the UK capture the prime minister joining in with traning drills - which at one point saw him throw a grenade.
Mr Johnson visited the troops in North Yorkshire who were being trained as part of the support being offered by the UK to the embattled eastern European country in its fight against the ongoing Russian invasion.
The pictures, released today by Downing Street, show the outgoing prime minister speaking to the Ukrainian and British troops, and posing with artillery, including grenades and machine guns.
Mr Johnson was snapped attending the event by his publicly funded personal photographer, who, according to Sky News, works part time on a full-time equivalent salary of between £100,000 to £104,999.
A seperate video of the prime minister’s visit was shared to his Twitter account, in which he proclaims his pride for the work the UK had done so far to support the Ukrainian effort.
Mr Johnson said: “I’ve been meeting some of the 400 Ukrainian troops who are here, being trained by our forces, getting ready to go and fight in Ukraine.
“It’s part of a huge commitment we’ve made to train Ukrainian forces.
“We want to train about 10,000 of them over the next four months. That comes on top of the investment we’re making in supporting Ukrainians with weaponry - 6,900, anti-tank weapons, about 120 armoured vehicles and much much else besides including now, the multiple launch rocket systems that together with the Americans, Germans, and others we’re providing really are starting to make a difference, we hope, to the course of that war, starting to push back Putin’s evil attack on Ukraine.
“I know that in the end, the Ukrainian people are going to succeed, I know that the Ukrainian forces are going to succeed.
“I’m very proud of the role that the UK has been able to play so far. But in the end, this is thanks to the bravery and the heroism of these Ukrainian troops.
It comes after Boris Johnson was accused of last weekend of “clocking off” after missing a meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra committee to discuss the heatwave.
He instead paod a visit to the Farnborough Air Show in Hampshire - just days after finding time to fly in a Typhoon jet with the RAF.
