Defence Secretary John Healey has underscored the growing threat posed by Russia, describing it as “the most pressing and immediate threat to Britain.”
Addressing the House of Commons, he highlighted the challenges stemming from Russian aggression, despite the Kremlin’s weakened global position.
Mr Healey characterised Russia as both dangerous and vulnerable, saying: “Russia is dangerous, but fundamentally weak.” He detailed the toll the war in Ukraine has taken on Russia’s military and international standing: “In Ukraine, it has suffered devastatingly high rates of casualties over three years in a war that it thought it would win in a week.”
The Defence Secretary pointed to further evidence of Russia’s struggles, noting: “Compounding the humiliation, Putin has been forced to turn to North Korea to reinforce its front-line fighters.”
A Strategic Defeat in Syria
Mr Healey also addressed Russia’s diminishing influence in other regions. Referring to recent developments in the Middle East, he stated: “The strategic defeat in Syria has exposed its diminishing power on the global stage.”
This loss, coupled with significant economic challenges at home, paints a picture of a country grappling with internal and external pressures. He elaborated: “At home, the Russian economy faces crippling strains.”
A Persistent Threat
Despite these setbacks, the Defence Secretary emphasised that Russia remains a significant and immediate danger. “Nevertheless, Mr Speaker, Russia remains the most pressing and immediate threat to Britain,” he warned.
The UK’s response to this threat includes ramping up defence spending, strengthening alliances, and targeting Russia’s economic and military capabilities. Mr Healey reiterated the government’s commitment to national security: “We will protect the homeland and our critical national infrastructure. And we will make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.”
The Defence Secretary’s statement reflects the UK’s determination to counter Russian aggression, both directly and through support for Ukraine. As Mr Healey stated earlier, “Russian aggression will not be tolerated, at home or in Ukraine.”
Something vulnerable is not dangerous, stop scaring people with nonsense, Russia is incapable of advancing more than one metre a day in Ukraine, on the other hand if it is so dangerous for Great Britain why don’t they stop dismantling the Armed Forces, it is all so ridiculous and dystopian.
Actually where nations feel weak and vulnerable can bizarrely be the time that traditional deterrence does not work…a strong secure nation will look at a deterrent and essentially risk assess triggering, but not be worried…Russia on the other hand is suffering through weakness and that does make it dangerous..because any peer war is essentially catastrophic even if your going to win….weak nations and alliances often attack stronger nations and alliances…just look at the central powers…they attacked a stronger alliance because of their own perception of weakness..same with imperial japan facing the US…never ever assume a weaker nation will not attack a stronger nation if it feels it has no other choice.
Let’s do something about it then, let’s not delay the SDR, ensure our armed forces spend money better and have good procurement, give the Army, Navy and Airforces the money and resources to fight it let’s not cut cut cut if we have a threat we should be dealing with it properly
And also let’s get some good homeland defences and increase defence spending I mean the benefits bill is much higher or the same as the defence budget
Couldn’t agree more has I posted yesterday on a article , Trump has said NATO members should be paying 5% on defence .And we’ve got Starmer thinking it’s a big deal going from 2.3% -2.5% .Love to see Starmers face when heard of this news 🤗
I assume Trump will be increasing American defence spending from its current 3.45 to 5% as well?
I e would assume that the TOTUS will lead by example?
If I were in charge I’d increase to 2.5% of GDP by the end of this year and to 3% by 2030.
Then pay 3.5% from tomorrow for increases in the capacity of the forces.
Simples. No more cobblers with empty words.
👍
A strong defence is cheaper many times cheaper than a war. If it takes an increase in taxes, then do it!!!
Even if you commited to 3.5% it would take years to get there. Amazon doesn’t have a defence section deliverable Monday. It takes time to recruit, the steel for additional T26 won’t be cut in under 4 to 6 years. New tanks. New typhoons . What the defence industry needs is certainty to plan.
A peer war costs you around a third of your GDP and will destroy your economy for a generation…and that’s if you win.
We could easily spend 3% next year and 3.5% the year after. How long did it take for Poland to get to 4.7% from 2.4% in 2022?
Poland is buying literally everything off the shelf.
They are also a land power. Building up a land army quickly is much easier than with aircraft or warships.
Personally, I’d raise to 2.5% this year and then get to 3% by 2030. This gives time for personnel to be recruited and trained, for ships, aircraft etc to be built at home, adding a boost to British industry.
You think we don’t need to expand the Army? The extra on 2.5% will be swallowed up by salary increases and nuclear. We need more than that just to avoid further cuts.
As for boosting British Defence industry, spending more money will ensure that industry can grow quickly. If I give you ten pounds and your neighbour the same every year until the end of the decade, you’ll have ten pounds every year (consistently and reliably). If I give you nothing this year “rising to” ten pounds in 2030 while giving your neighbour nothing at all, do you somehow think you’d be better off? Neither the military nor industry wins from a slow “careful” increase.
Exactly. Three years ago Scholz announced a 100b euro fund to rebuild Germany’s defence. To date little has been delivered . According to the European Security and Defence website ” The intended effect as a booster for the modernisation of the Bundeswehr is rapidly evaporating”
If we ordered more T26 now, we wouldn’t see them much before 2035.
All that can be done in the short term is improving availability of existing platforms and rebuilding weapons stocks.
Everyone who knows the Germans saw tis coming. All promise, no delivery, back to the status quo.
I think to be fair to the German forces what they already had was in such a poor state of repair a large proportion of the 100 billion went on bringing that equipment back into full working order.
But even if the increased the budget tomorrow and order additional F35s 3 to 4 year lead time. Typhoons 2 to 3 year lead time and we don’t have the pilots . Astutes , not going to happen as the Barrow is fully commuted to the Dreadnaught and they CANNOT be delayed.
More tanks , I would like to see our tank number vastly increase but we don’t have the crews even if we have the chassis . Drastically increasing defence spending is not like turning on a tap. In fact turning on the tap would be a disaster.
It has to be planned and opened gradually.
More fast jets have to go hand in hand with more aircrew , more ground crew, logistics etc.
As of last year around €29b had been earmarked for projects, many running into the 2030s. In effect the “booster” has just replaced normal expenditure with little net increase in capabilities.
If the government increased the budget tomorrow and we ordered 24 more Typhoons, it might well take 2 or 3 years before we saw the first one, but we’d still have to start paying for that immediately. The idea that because there’s a lead time we shouldn’t order them is crazy. If we wait too long the Treasury would say, why not wait for GCAP? Same is true for more F35s. Nobody is suggesting more Astutes – that’s a straw man. Besides it’s not just about buying big platforms.
There’s lots we can start paying for almost immediately: recruitment and increasing service personnel nymbers, service accommodation, GBAD, acceleration in Ajax and Boxer production (with at least RS6), lightweight armoured vehicles, NMH (& NGRP), more Typhoons, faster Typhoon upgrades, a faster RAF training pipeline, Mk41s on all escorts, full platform networking, drone production, build up ammunition stocks, logistics infrastructure, etc, etc.
There’s a big difference between a one-off boost like Germany’s and an indefinite rise in budget. You have to be able to operate and maintain the stuff you buy, which requires long term commitment. You say growth has to be planned. However, far from a disaster, turning on the taps is a necessary first step. Without the certainty of budget there is no serious planning.
It’s quite striking to consider the numbers of aircraft, ships and equipment that have been scrapped, capability gapped or sold on since the Salisbury Novichok attack alone. It’s taken a long time for them to smell the coffee.
Lucky the Sov’s are still tied up failing to conquer Ukraine. Which they shouldn’t be as Trump said he’d end it on day one of his term. All he’s done so far is make a social media post threatening to put taxes and tariffs on imports from Russia. Given that the US imports practically nothing from Russia since they invaded Ukraine, that’s not likely to make a lot of difference. Russia is already the most sanctioned country in the world, and that hasn’t stopped them.
Us and the rest of Europe need to get properly and well armed and be ready to deter Putin and his psychotic mates from trying anything else. And we need to step up arming Ukraine with mountains and mountains of drones.
If it’s know to be an immediate threat, why is every single policy decision to do with defence being delayed 6 months until the SDR is published….
Surely this now warrants some UORs….
We need to get real – Russia may be a threat to NATO – but no direct threat to the UK. If our Ministers consider Russia to be a threat then now is the time to return forces scattered across the world to support the defence of the UK. No point in sending a naval Taskforce to the other side of the world if the threat is in the Northern Hemisphere. Surely it is about time that UK stopped pretending to be a world power and spend time and Monet sorting out the mess we live in here at home
Getting real is accepting a threat to security in Europe is a direct threat to the UK. We are so closely tied to Europe that if things go to hell over there we’ll be dragged down with them. Like it or not, in or out of the EU being irrelevant, we are part of Europe.
That’s because you can threaten the Uk in a number of ways…we are an island nation dependent on world wide shipping lanes..we also have dependence’s across the globe..and we are a global power…we are not a super power but we are a global power…
Nazi Germany was no direct threat to the UK – Hitler would have loved us to join him.
Are you saying we should have stayed out of it in 1939?
And surely it’s about time that RUSSIA stopped pretending to be a world power (they’ve truly exposed themselves as a paper tiger the past 3 years!) and spent time and money sorting out the mess they live in there at home in Russia.
It takes a lot less power to disrupt than keep things stable – the Houthis are a disruption and they have virtually no global power. That’s also enough for Putin. He wants to become relatively more powerful, which he can achieve by reducing the rest of us more easily than by sorting out his own shit.
Russia is attacking us every day with Cyber and misinformation. In addition, I am convinced that they have numerous operatives in the country who continually try and undermine our democracy. Their shadow intelligence fleet are mapping our undersee connectivity and power – it is only a matter of time before we suffer serious damage. Their media pundits threaten the UK almost on a daily basis – they will not do this without ‘the nod’ from Putin. We need to take threats seriously and the west needs to respond more robustly or we will be seen as week and vulnerable. Putin respected Turkey after they shot one of the aircraft down and there was no war. We need to make commitments now to increase defence spending and increase the capabilities of all of our armed services. However, I fear this government will do nothing other than continue to reduce our defences. When asked about stronger defences, they say wait for the defence review, but they didn’t wait when they cut capability a few months ago……..
If Russia is such a threat then act like you recognise it and get our defensive holes plugged!
Can somebody explain what this ‘threat’ is from Russia. What’s the tangible evidence that Russia poses a threat? What is the ‘why’? I’m not convinced at all. If one advances the cyber threat, then I’d suggest that the UK also engages with such activity. Genuine debate. What is the ‘why’. What are the specific examples? Other than ‘Russia poses a threat’.
Russia is a threat because it sincerely believes their culture, both as imperial Orthodox Christian ‘greater Russia’ and as the post 1917 Marxist Soviet Union are threatened. They believe themselves to be engaged in an existential struggle for the new world order: western liberal democracy and capitalism vs communism. Who is to say they are mistaken? Russia sees the choice as communism or fascism.
The most dangerous threat to UK is old Donnie and Pres Elon. Old Donnie got Trudeau fired now Pres Elon and sidekick, old Donnie, wants to install their sycophants in Parliament. The Imperial Trump really, really wants Greenland and assimilate Canada, then next UK as 52nd state
Utter rubbish.