London wants to make Russia believe it has supplied Kiev with more weapons than it has in reality, a report says

The British military is supplying Ukraine with flat-pack decoys designed to mimic real military hardware, The Times reported on Saturday, citing sources. The effort is aimed at deceiving Russian forces and exaggerating the amount of modern equipment on the front line.

At the heart of the effort are so-called "Ikea-style" kits resembling British-supplied tanks, artillery, and air defense systems that are designed to stretch Russia's surveillance and strike capacity. "We haven't gifted a huge amount of these, so anything we can do to make the quantities look greater on the front line is advantageous to us," RAF Squadron Leader Lowri Simner told the paper.

The deception campaign is being managed by Taskforce Kindred, a 20-person team within the British Defense Ministry that works with industry specialists. They rely on digital images of equipment to create realistic replicas, which are then printed on flat materials, shipped to Kiev, and quickly assembled close to the combat zones.

Some of the replicas are meant to resemble such equipment as Challenger 2 tanks and AS-90 self-propelled guns. The paper notes that decoys have come a long way from what was used during World War II. The impetus to improve the replicas has come from modern drones and satellites with formidable reconnaissance capabilities.

For every five real vehicles sent to Ukraine Kiev also receives as many as 30 decoys, according to Colonel Olly Todd, a military lead with the Taskforce Kindred. "You could be quite easily fooled," he noted, adding that decoys are a "fundamental" facet of modern warfare.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Katerina Chernohorenko said, as quoted by The Times, that Russia has also been actively using decoys, particularly during drone strikes. She said many of the UAVs sent by Moscow carry minimal explosives but are designed to bait Ukrainian air defenses and waste ammo, which is often in short supply.

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Despite its continued military support for Ukraine - which has reached Pound 13 billion ($17 billion) - UK defense officials have sounded the alarm about the country not being ready for a full-scale war with a near-peer adversary due to years of underinvestment and procurement delays.

Russia has condemned Western arms shipments to Ukraine, warning that they only prolong the conflict without changing its ultimate outcome.