The Government has outlined the scale of uncrewed systems ordered and delivered for both Ukraine and the British armed forces, while declining to provide a detailed breakdown of long range one way attack drones on operational security grounds.
In a written answer to former Defence Secretary James Cartlidge, Defence Minister Luke Pollard responded to questions on how many long range one way attack drones had been ordered since 5 July 2024 for Ukraine and for UK forces.
Pollard pointed to a statement made at the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in October 2025, where the Defence Secretary confirmed that 600 million pounds had been invested by the UK during the year to accelerate drone deliveries to Ukraine.
He said that more than 85,000 military drones had been delivered between April and October 2025, against an annual target of 100,000 for the financial year.
Turning to UK forces, Pollard stated that the Ministry of Defence had taken delivery of nearly 10,000 uncrewed systems since July 2024.
However, he declined to provide further detail on specific types or quantities of long range one way attack drones. He said: “Due to operational security considerations, it is important to guard against the threat of adversary data aggregation regarding the specific detailed breakdown of UK military capability, including platform numbers and types, so would be inappropriate to comment further.”
Makes you wonder just what else we have taken delivery of these past few years 🤔
And the wider transparency vowed by Labour continues.
What next, denying we have a type of Fast Jet or ship?
At this rate, the military will be so secret they’ll just cut the lot and the UK might be none the wiser.
So why did Healey stand arms folded like a Royal Marine last year posing next to Storm Shroud, of which it’s known a whole 24 had been procured?
Thing is the very first second third and fourth purpose of out armed forces is to deter aggression and to deter you must show the three Cs
Capability.. actually having the hard power to smash your enemy and resist being smashed yourself, so deployable army brigades, conventional strategic strike, air and sea power, defensive systems and civil resistance.
Credibility.. a political and social system that shows its willing to stand the line, and go eye for eye tooth for tooth until the very end… you do this with exercises and showing your political and civil systems are up for the fight.
Communication.. now the first two are useless unless your enemies know exactly what you can do to them.. if you have a 999 storm shadows pointed at their face you tell them you have 1000+ ( nothing wrong with a bit of over stating as long as it’s believed).. and you load up a squadron for bear and trawl it’s skirts across their boarders in plan sight….
You do not hide what you have… because that is no deterrent it’s a sign of:
1) weakness.. which is no deterrent
2) you are hiding your strength… because you are planning to go offensive.. which is essentially anti deterrent.
We all know including Russia what this is about….
The description that’s always remained with me concerning deterrence, and Trident especially, is the story about the burglar. He had two houses to choose to rob from. One, open side window, curtains open. He peeks through the letterbox and sees keys on table, close to front door.
The other, closed windows, curtains drawn. He has a peek through the letterbox, and sees a shotgun pointing at him.
Which house does he choose to rob.
We are weak in many areas, and HMG think they csn hide it from those who follow military matters. From most of the public, it’s easy.
On the OWEs and other loitering munitions, one can already make a small list of what has been bought from official sources, vague as they are.
What I want to know is the orbat side, who is issued with them, who fires them, a Battery? A Platoon per Company? I don’t need to know how many.
They don’t hide the number of CH2 Tanks, who is issued with them, and how many Sqns the KRH, QRH and RTR have.
It’s getting ridiculous.
Not sure why they are holding back on the types of drones sent?
It would not make a difference
Well, it seems we can produce plenty of drones. We just need to learn lessons from exercises and transform the British Army and get these companies better integrated into the supply line
Running out of drones isnt an option on the front line
Meanwhile, all those drones will be of great use, regardless of type
Not sure why it comes across as a bit cloak-and-dagger🤔
Now this who refusing to be open about capability is starting really great.. as a person who does FOI for information.
And it’s pissing me off for three important reasons
1) accountability.. the first duty of the government is to defend the nation and the government is directly accountable to the electorate via democratic process.. how can democratic process work if government does not report on how exactly it’s defending the nation… our government has not really been held to account for how it defends our nation for about 2 decades now..and it’s caused massive damage.
Noel the government uses national security as a reason to not be held to account, that is a false and very damaging paridgm because
2) The very first, second, third and fourth purpose of out armed forces is to deter aggression and to deter you must show the three Cs
Capability.. actually having the hard power to smash your enemy and resist being smashed yourself, so deployable army brigades, conventional strategic strike, air and sea power, defensive systems and civil resistance.
Credibility.. a political and social system that shows its willing to stand the line, and go eye for eye tooth for tooth until the very end… you do this with exercises and showing your political and civil systems are up for the fight.
Communication.. now the first two are useless unless your enemies know exactly what you can do to them.. if you have a 999 storm shadows pointed at their face you tell them you have 1000+ ( nothing wrong with a bit of over stating as long as it’s believed).. and you load up a squadron for bear and trawl it’s skirts across their boarders in plan sight….
You do not hide what you have… because that is no deterrent at all and damages the security of the nation..because it’s a sign of:
3) weakness.. which is no deterrent or even worse you are hiding your strength… because the only reason you hide your strength is if you are planning to go offensive.. which is essentially anti deterrent.
So Russia will either decide one of two things.. we are weak and easy to defeat and so we have no deterrent and as they hate our guts they will act on that or or we will trigger their inbuilt paranoia about the UK planning to attack and destroy them.. which will have the same results..
So by hiding, we have no accountability which destroys our political will to fight as well as social cohesion ( credibility) and we do not communicate our capability or credibility which destroys all aspects of deterrence…
This is what pisses me off its rank stupidly to hide.. we are not being attacked tomorrow so be honest and let’s fix our deterrent if needed… both from a capability ( building weapons) and credibility ( building political and social support ) and have good communication of what we have…
As a final point I will bring china into the mix as it’s a great example… in the 19C the RN after the Napoleonic wars was utterly and completely dominating and we had Pax Britannic.. because every nation on earth knew that to go to war with Britain was to have your seas closed and trade destroyed..with no hope beyond strangulation of your economy.. As an example the U.S. spent most of the 19C desperately wanting to invade Canada, but the RN simply spent a wonderful time with unassailable battle fleets floating around the US reminding them what would happen to their trade if they stepped over the border…so they never ever did ( post napoleon) The only major nation earth that did not really have the foggiest notion of the power of the British empire was china.. because of two reasons .. 1) the RN did not operate around china due to the British east India companies control and 2) due to cultural blindness the Chinese never bothered looking.. so the British empire did not communicate its capabilities, or credibility and china went to war with a power it had no hope of fighting against… where as if Britain had communicated its power china would have realised it was not dealing with a few barbarians .. but instead the greatest power the world had ever know with an unshakable will.
If we fast forward to the 21c something very different is happening with china.. a nation with 60-65% of the worlds maritime industry and the largest navy in the world has convinced most of the world its a low power green water second rate maritime power.. not because it’s failed to communicate its deterrent.. but because it is hiding it’s strength… and there is only one reason to hide your strength and it’s not to deter war.
Yup.
China waits whilst Russia and America go the way of past Empires.
I assume that our military aid to Ukraine from the gifting of vehicles, other platforms and munitions to Op Interflex training is coming out of the Defence budget rather than the FCDO budget (as it really should be)? If so, it has a significant effect on our being able to rearm.