Despite a recently proposed smoking ban, it’s been revealed the UK government has been providing cigarettes to Ukrainian troops training in the country.
Under a scheme with the Ministry of Defence, Ukrainian soldiers undergoing training in the UK are given duty-free tobacco as part of their rations.
It came after soldiers reportedly complained about the high prices of cigarettes in the UK – which average around an eyewatering £15 per pack.
In Ukraine, a pack of 20 cigarettes will only set you back roughly £1.70.
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It’s said the move has helped Ukrainian soldiers focus, with the lack of cigarettes posing a ‘risk to morale’.
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A source, familiar with the deal, told the Telegraph: ‘It is fair to say that smoking is going to be less of a threat to these brave soldiers’ lives than fighting Putin’s illegal invasion of their country.’
The key sentence being:
A source, familiar with the deal, told the Telegraph: ‘It is fair to say that smoking is going to be less of a threat to these brave soldiers’ lives than fighting Putin’s illegal invasion of their country.’
It’s also worth noting that smoking is more prevalent in Ukraine compared to countries like the UK. The smoking rate in Ukraine is 25%, and 40% amongst males, compared to 15% and 17% in the UK.
It sounds like we’re talking about people who already have a nicotine addiction and are faced with either going cold turkey during training, which is indeed probably gonna be a distraction, or paying very high British tobacco taxes. Hmm.
considers
Maybe:
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Talk to the Ukrainian government and see what they want done if that hasn’t already happened? The people are serving Ukrainian military members and being sent by their command to the UK. I’d say that the best responsible party here for determining personnel policy is maybe the Ukrainian military. They’re the most-directly-responsible people for the welfare of their members. Militaries have long set policy on stuff like this, deciding to or not to include tobacco or alcohol in rations.
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Hand out vaping equipment? I have no idea if it’s what the people in question want, but if so, that’d let people get their nicotine fix, but avoid the associated lung cancer. There’s also probably some direct impact on physical fitness and military capability from avoiding the smoke inhalation.
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Rather than giving cigarettes, include some sort of “luxury allowance” that soldiers can spend on whatever during training, so that people aren’t placed in a position where only smokers get some kind of luxury, so that there isn’t an incentive being created to smoke. Like, if it’s £15 a pack, as the article says, and the British government is willing to support a pack-a-day habit, just hand out £15 per soldier per day and let them buy a pack if they want or whatever else they want with it. Then a smoker is made no worse-off by the tobacco tax, and a non-smoker isn’t encouraged to start. If it’s cigarettes that are chosen, probably most of that is just going right back to the British government’s general fund in the form of taxation anyway, just means that funds need to be allocated to the British Army to cover it.
EDIT: The Ukrainian government was consulted; from the article text:
Ben Wallace, the then defence secretary, helped to coordinate the move alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Reznikov.
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The British army tells you not to quit smoking when you join as the training is tough enough without the withdrawal added on top so this stands to reason.
