UK Armed Forces Minister has confirmed no British troops will fight in Ukraine, inews reported.

James Heappey told Sky News on Saturday that no British troops will be deployed to Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion.

He said: “There have been British troops in Ukraine involved in a training mission for many years, and we’ve trained many thousands of Ukrainians in that time. We’ve provided some defensive anti-tank weapons systems, and some trainers have gone forward to assist in the training of Ukrainian soldiers on those weapons systems.

“But there will be no British troops in Ukraine if there is any conflict with Russia.

“I think the Kremlin would like there to be a pretext that there was Western aggression in Ukraine to which they were responded, and it’s important we don’t give them the grounds to make that argument. There will be none in Ukraine.”

Heappey told the BBC’s Today program that the British trainers would be leaving Ukraine over the weekend after the call for civilians to also leave.

He said that troops were being sent by the UK and US to NATO allies in eastern Europe amid fears of a large-scale humanitarian crisis if the invasion proceeds.