Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has reportedly been told by a senior US general that the British army is no longer considered a top-level fighting force.
Decades of cuts are said to have led to a decline in war-fighting capability, which needs to be reversed faster than planned in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
‘Bottom line… it’s an entire service unable to protect the UK and our allies for a decade,’ one defence source said, Sky News reports.
Rishi Sunak is also running the risk of failing in his role as ‘wartime Prime Minister’ unless the situation is radically improved, the source said.
In order to do this, they suggested the defence budget be boosted by at least £3bn a year with no further reductions in the size of the army, while peacetime procurement rules should be relaxed in order to buy weapons quickly.
The source stated: ‘We have a wartime prime minister and a wartime chancellor,’ one source said.
‘History will look back at the choices they make in the coming weeks as fundamental to whether this government genuinely believes that its primary duty is the defence of the realm or whether that is just a slogan to be given lip service.’
Earlier today, it was reported Ukraine needs new weapons and faster deliveries to confront a ‘very tough’ situation of constant attacks by Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk region.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said: ‘The situation is very tough. Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other sectors in Donetsk region, there are constant Russian attacks. There are constant attempts to break through our defences,’ Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
‘Russia wants the war to drag on and exhaust our forces. So we have to make time our weapon. We have to speed up events, speed up supplies and open up new weapons options for Ukraine.’
The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said earlier on Sunday that its forces repelled an attack near Blahodatne in the eastern part of the Donetsk region, while Russia’s Wagner private military group said it took control of the village.
A later military statement made no mention of Blahodatne.
Zelensky issued his latest appeal for increased weapons shipments days after Germany and the United States led a list of countries agreeing to supply modern tanks.
Yesterday, Zelensky said Ukraine needed the US-made ATACMS missile with a range of about 300 km, which Washington has so far declined to supply. A presidential adviser said talks were under way on supplying long-range missiles and a Ukrainian air force spokesman spoke of negotiations on providing aircraft.
In his latest remarks, Zelensky said Ukraine’s command was committed to ensuring that ‘our pressure is greater than the occupiers’ capacity to attack’ and that meant ‘maintaining the defence support from our partners’.
‘The enemy takes no account of its personnel and despite the extent of the losses is maintaining the intensity of its attacks,’ he said.
‘Confronting this requires extraordinary resilience and a full awareness by our soldiers that in defending Donetsk region they are defending all of Ukraine.’
First published in Daily Mail (UK)
