Cuts have already seen the size of the British Army fall from more than 100,000 in 2010 to around 73,000 now. Gen Sanders said that within the next three years the British Army needed to be 120,000 strong with the addition of reserves. But he said even that is not enough - so the Army should be designed to expand rapidly "to enable the first echelon, resource the second echelon, and train and equip the citizen army that must follow". But he was making the point that if war broke out troop numbers would be too small. As Gen Sir Patrick Sanders stated several times in his speech on Wednesday, "Ukraine really matters".
The UK's defence secretary has also warned that we need to be prepared for a war. In his first major speech on defence, Grant Shapps said the country was moving from a "post war to a pre-war world". If Russia did decide to invade Ukraine, the senior Western intelligence official said large numbers of people would be displaced. The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has said he received reassurances from his Slovakian counterpart, Robert Fico, that the country would support Kyiv’s aspirations to join the EU. Authorities in Russia’s Belgorod region said all 74 people onboard the plane, which Moscow has said was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be swapped for Russian captives, were killed. I welcome the clear support of the prime minister and his government for Sweden’s Nato membership,” Stoltenberg said in a post on X.
PM in Kyiv: UK support will not falter
He points out that our digital networks are mainly cellular in structure, making it almost impossible to wipe them all at once. Britain has also allowed ammunition supplies to dwindle to “dangerously low levels,” according to a Parliamentary Defence Committee report. Gen Sir Richard Barrons, the former head of the British Joint Forces Command, told the committee that he doubted there were “sufficient munitions to sustain a high-intensity conflict for more than about a week”. A 13-year-old girl died today from injuries sustained in the Russian shelling of her village in the Kharkiv oblast earlier this month, said Oleg Synegubov, head of the Kharkiv regional state administration. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called for an international investigation into the crash. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has pledged to make the findings of Moscow’s crash investigation public.
- Moscow made its army illegal shortly after launching its Ukraine offensive in February 2022.
- The price of British gas for next-day delivery shot up by 40 per cent, to £280 per therm.
- About 10 civilians are believed to have been killed, including six in an air strike in Brovary near the capital Kyiv.
- The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called for an international investigation into the crash.
- One ex senior minister suggested to me that there was a generational divide between those who had lived with the threat of the Cold War era, and those who had not.
- But the US has said the issue at stake is Russian aggression, not Nato expansion.
After 2,000 anti-tank weapons were delivered last week and 30 British troops arrived to teach Ukrainian forces how to use them, the phrase "God Save the Queen" began trending on Twitter in Ukraine. Some bars and restaurants in Kyiv were offering free drinks to anyone who had a UK passport. For now the UK appears likely to stick to sanctions rather than engaging in direct military action unless a Nato ally is attacked, although some Conservative MPs have called for the Government to provide air support to Ukraine. In terms of military aid, the UK has trained 22,000 Ukrainian troops under Operation Orbital since 2015, supporting both Ukraine’s army and navy. Forces are on standby in eastern Europe, and Nato is working with Ukraine to modernise its forces and protect it against cyber attacks.
Regional governor confirms oil refinery attack
The intelligence official described the build-up as a "slow drip" and a "slow ratcheting up of pressure". Ukraine has declared martial law - which means the military takes control temporarily. https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-did-boris-johnson-travel-to-ukraine.html has cut diplomatic ties with Russia, offered weapons to anyone who wants them and declared an overnight curfew for Kyiv.
- Authorities in Russia’s Belgorod region said all 74 people onboard the plane, which Moscow has said was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be swapped for Russian captives, were killed.
- A Ukrainian drone struck a Russian oil refinery 155 miles north of Moscow on Monday morning.
- The prime minister did confirm that 1,000 more troops would be put on alert in the UK if Russia were to invade although Downing Street is likely to follow the lead set by Nato.
- A prominent war expert says the US is on the verge of lessening its support for, or even withdrawing from, NATO - with potentially catastrophic consequences for Europe.
He said the intelligence on the prospect of an invasion was “grim”, but added that he did not believe Vladimir Putin had made a decision on whether to act. He called on Moscow to engage in meaningful talks when he spoke alongside the Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in a joint news conference at the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels. True Russian cyberwarfare capabilities have proved something of a damp squib in Ukraine. Far from crippling the entire national infrastructure, the worst they are known to have done is briefly disrupt power and mobile phone networks.
UK government's humanitarian response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: facts and figures
But this was followed up with missile attacks, using different kinds of weapons in a bid to overwhelm and break through the city's defences. Another potential threat could come from anti-war politicians, whom Kremlin propagandists might seek to incite. In extremis, a wartime government could inter anyone deemed a threat to public order or the war effort. “Preparations for the repatriation had been underway for a long time,” Ukraine’s coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war said in a statement. Russian forces launched eight rocket strikes on civilian infrastructure in the Donetsk and the Kherson oblasts, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said in its morning briefing.
- Mr Johnson was among leaders of the G7 group of wealthy nations who met to discuss the situation.
- There are also 53 entities on the sanctions list, which mainly covers Russian-backed militias in eastern Ukraine but also includes a number of companies and the five Russian banks added on Tuesday.
- Mr Johnson said 350 Royal Marines from 45 Commando had now arrived in Poland, joining 150 personnel already in the country.
- “But sometimes, people receive support from both [their new country of residence] and [Ukraine].
- A Russian MP, Andrei Kartapolov, began expanding on the statement almost immediately, even suggesting Ukraine might have used a Patriot missile to hit the Ilyushin plane.