The UK should start mobilising and beef up its military now, a new bombshell report has warned. Military planners are being told to urgently expand recruitment into the armed forces, with warnings that the “window of orderly action is limited”.
The report, from RUSI think-tank, is expected to raise concerns in Whitehall, amid growing tensions over UK defence spending, after the Prime Minister last week failed to confirm when the government’s military funding plan would be released. The analysis suggests Britain’s land forces may need to double in size to address the growing threat of conflict with Russia. Paul O’Neill, Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI, said Britain should have increased its military power “10 years ago”.
He told The Sun that Britain has the “tradition” of “doing these things too late”. O’Neill said: “We need to grow the capacity to absorb more reserves, then bring more in.”
Tensions between Russia and the UK have intensified in recent weeks, with Russia warning that it is preparing appropriate measures in response to attempts by UK authorities to seize vessels linked to the so-called shadow fleet.
Andrei Kelin, the Russian ambassador to Britain, told Britain they should “think carefully” about the consequences, including legal ones, of actions taken against Russian-linked vessels.
Earlier this month WW3 fears were once again sent soaring after Russian propagandists were caught brazenly discussing the possibility of launching “nuclear or non-nuclear” strikes on the UK and any country seizing vessels part of the country’s so-called shadow fleet.
Talk show host Vladimir Solovyov said: “Why don’t we, for example, say that any country that tries to seize a ship, and we don’t care which one, will be subjected to a nuclear, or non-nuclear, missile strike by us?
The UK has a much smaller army than Russia with them ranking 2nd globally compared to the UK’s 8th, according to 2026 Global Firepower data.