Military kit also needs boots on the ground to operate it – hence Sir Patrick’s call for a “Citizen Army” to boost the regular Armed Forces. Whether people would be flocking into recruitment offices is open to question. According to https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-tanks-are-russia-using-in-ukraine.html , only one in five Britons would volunteer for service in the event of an invasion. Since the beginning of the Ukrainian revolution and Pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine, the United Kingdom has actively supported Ukraine and publicly condemned Russian actions. The UK supports Ukraine in becoming a member of the EU and NATO.[11][12] In this context London has implemented a series of sanctions and restrictive measures both in unilateral and multilateral formats.
It is now a professional force of around 73,000, compared to around 100,000 in 2010. “The British military has a proud tradition of being a voluntary force and there is absolutely no suggestion of a return to conscription,” the MoD said, adding that £50bn was being invested in the military during the current year. “We have become so comfortable here in Britain that it’s hard to imagine young people fighting, and when I went to Afghanistan a decade ago, I didn’t think the youngsters of would be up to much,” he said.
Ukraine–United Kingdom relations
But the head of the British Army Gen Sir Patrick Sanders is not alone in issuing a national call to prepare for a major conflict on European soil. On Tuesday, the chief of Norway’s armed forces said the country must increase defence spending in the face of a potential war with Russia within three years, following its neighbour Sweden in urging citizens to brace for conflict. A large diversion of citizens to military duty would leave gaps in the workforce to be filled, be it guarding food warehouses or building trenches and bomb shelters.
A new £2.5bn military aid package from the UK has been welcomed here, with £200m of that earmarked specifically for drones. But President Volodymyr Zelensky has also pledged to make a million of them within the borders of Ukraine. With major military packages trapped under political disagreements in the US and European Union, Ukraine is having to adapt, and look inwards.
Ukraine crisis: What’s at stake for the UK?
NATO believed the main threat to Western Europe came from advancing Soviet tanks and developed equipment to use against them on the battlefield. The latest versions of those weapons includes the NLAWs (Next generation Light Anti-tank Weapons) and Javelins. For years, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the belief was that Western armed forces would only ever have to take part in what was known as 'expeditionary' wars. These are conflicts involving a strong military force going into a situation in which it has superiority, so it can win easily - for example the Gulf and Iraq wars and conflicts in Sierra Leone and Kosovo.
UK officials said they are “braced for significant petrol price rises at the pump”. Russia has seen more success in eastern Ukraine, by pounding their opposing forces and holding them back with an onslaught. Air Vice Marshal Bell says the other reason the attack on the Moskva was successful was because it had been manoeuvring in a way that left it vulnerable to attack.
Russian advances in the east
The western bank of the Dnipro river in the city of Kherson is one of them. As Gen Sir Patrick Sanders stated several times in his speech on Wednesday, "Ukraine really matters". Russia's ambitions, he said, were not just about seizing territory but "about defeating our system and way of life politically, psychologically and symbolically". Earlier this month The Telegraph revealed that the Navy has so few sailors it will have to decommission two warships to staff its new class of frigates. Last week Capita, the outsourcing specialist in charge of the Army’s recruitment, said soldiers who have visible tattoos, hay fever or a record of asthma should be allowed to join to solve the crisis. The number of regular troops in the Army stands at 75,983, although defence sources insisted applications for the Army were at the highest they had been in six years.
- While the Channel has long been the country’s greatest defence, it makes it hard to import in times of war.
- The western bank of the Dnipro river in the city of Kherson is one of them.
- Ukraine is known as the “breadbasket of Europe” and along with Russia makes up 29% of global wheat exports, 19% of corn and 80% of sunflower oil.
- Recent assessments by the ISW show Russian forces have made advances north of Bakhmut.
It's promising to deploy British forces to eastern European members of the Nato military alliance if Russian troops cross Ukraine's borders. In a snow-covered park in Kherson, we meet a mobile air-defence team under an archway. The overall effect means Finland can muster one of Europe's largest armies. The size of its active armed forces is only 19,000 personnel, but it can call on another 238,000 reserves.
- Fighting could spread into Belarus where Russian forces are already stationed.
- President Putin this month recognised the two regions held by the Russian-backed separatists as independent states and ordered Russian troops there, tearing up a peace deal.
- He highlighted the threat from Russia and pointed to steps being taken by other European nations to put their populations on a "war footing".
- But Russia is a major producer in global energy markets, accounting for 17 per cent of gas and 12 per cent of oil production globally in 2019 (Chart B, bottom-right panel).
- 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".