Today, Germany and the United Kingdom signed a historic defence agreement, the so-called “Trinity House Agreement” which paves the way for a closer cooperation between the two nations.
While most of the points listed in the agreement are relevant to NATO’s defence capabilities and the expansion of industrial cooperation, one point specifically deals with assistance to Ukraine.
According to the press releases from the German Ministry of Defence and the UK government, both nations will work together to ensure that the Westland Sea King Mk41 helicopters pledged by Germany to Ukraine can be equipped with modern missiles.
Six of these helicopters were pledged to Ukraine by Germany’s Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius during the 18th meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group on the 23rd of January 2024.
This pledge materialised thanks to a call from Ukrainian partners who asked for support with spare parts for the three Sea Kings handed over by the UK. While working on the Ukrainian enquiry, Germany eventually agreed not only to help with spare parts, but also to hand over helicopters themselves.
Of course, this is mostly only possible because the Sea King has now been decommissioned by the German Navy and has been replaced by the NH-90 NTH Sea Lion step by step.
The delivery of the helicopters, which also includes equipment such as cargo nets, cargo hooks and winches for SAR operations and a comprehensive spare parts package thanks to Norway, would have been possible as early as April, according to a German Ministry of Defence’s spokesperson.
However, even a month after they were originally pledged, the training of Ukrainian personnel had not yet started, since the Ukrainians were not yet sure where to deploy the Sea Kings.
Also thanks to this, the start of the training and therefore also the delivery has been delayed significantly, meaning that no delivery has officially taken place to date. Whether they can be delivered before the end of the year — as initially planned — is questionable.
It is interesting to note that both press releases are written in a way that suggests that both nations “only” ensure that the helicopters could be equipped with modern missiles, not that they would actually equip them themselves, while Germany’s Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius said during his statement that they would equip them with modern missiles.
German MoD: “Wir arbeiten gemeinsam daran, dass der von Deutschland an die Ukraine abgegebene Sea-King Hubschrauber mit modernen Flugkörpern ausgestattet werden kann”
UK government: “new joint work to enable German Sea King helicopters to be armed with modern missile systems”
Joint Communiqué: “we will collectively provide Ukraine with a new offensive capability, supporting fitting German donated Sea King Helicopters with modern missile systems”
As one can see, officials are once again not really aware of their communication, or they are deliberately confusing the press with contradictory information. For example, it would be easy to just remove the word “supporting” in the joint communiqué and everyone would know Germany and the UK would actually deliver the missiles themselves.
Further details regarding the plans were not announced. However, this agreement certainly goes back to the joint understanding on security and defence, which was presented by Chancellor Scholz and Prime Minister Sunak at the end of April 2024.
There, it was already agreed that Germany and the United Kingdom would co-operate on Ukrainian helicopters in the areas of armament, maintenance, and training.
Disclaimer
The paragraph regarding the Sea King in the press release from the German Ministry of Defence is written in the past tense, as if a delivery had already taken place. However, there is no evidence of this, and it would not be the first time that this has happened accidentally, although a delivery was still pending.
It’s also written in a way that suggests Germany had only delivered/pledged a single helicopter, which is wrong, so I assume it’s a mistake made in the press release.
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