Britain’s stockpile of drones would only last for a week of combat were Russia to invade Nato territory, senior military officers have admitted. The Mail has more.
British soldiers are chronically ill equipped to respond to a Russian invasion of Nato territory, defence sources have confirmed.
The precise shortages of drones and other weaponry remain classified for national security reasons.
But senior officers suggested the UK’s stockpile of drones would only last a week of combat in their most dire warning yet of how the UK would fare in the opening exchanges of a European conflict.
The UK’s current contribution to the defence alliance has prompted serving commanders to issue a desperate plea for additional funding.
They fear 2030 is the earliest Britain could respond adequately to a Russian invasion of a Baltic state or anywhere else along the alliance’s eastern flank.
But commanders believe immediate investment is required to be battle-ready in four years time, otherwise British forces face being wiped out if or when the Russians advance.
Currently the UK spends 2.6% of GDP on defence, while allies such as Poland spend 4.48% and Lithuania 4.0%.
Labour has committed to spend 2.7% from next year and maintains an “ambition” to reach 3% in the next Parliament.
Worth reading in full.
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Language and culture are integral to the Kremlin’s “compatriots” policy, by which Moscow claims for itself the role of patron of the world’s ethnic Russians and Russian speakers, and which it believes it has the right to defend by military means.
Moscow’s coercive form of cultural outreach is prosecuted by a host of Russian government agencies, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its culturally oriented subsidiaries Rossotrudnichestvo and the Russkiy Mir (“Russian World”) Foundation.
Russia’s expansionist imperialism is driven by demography.
The Moscow Times notes that official demographic data in Russia has been classified since the spring of 2025, halting the state publication of figures on births, deaths, and the overall population size.
The last available annual data from Rosstat , covering 2024, revealed that births had dropped to 1.222 million. That was the lowest number since 1999, a year marked by extreme economic crisis and soaring inflation following the country’s default. According to Raksha’s calculations, the number of newborns fell another 4% in 2025 to 1.178 million, marking the absolute lowest point in the country’s modern history.
In order to protect its gains by maintaining the security of its nuclear deterrent based on the Kola peninsula, Russia has… Read more »
The view from Norway:
‘We don’t exclude a land grab from Russia as part of their plan to protect their own nuclear capabilities, which is the only thing they have left that actually threatens the United States’ Gen Eirik Kristoffersen, Norway’s chief of defence.
‘Russia uses a wide range of tools in its attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in Europe and to achieve its strategic objectives. The distinction between war and peace is becoming increasingly blurred.
Norway is not shielded from these developments. We and other countries are subject to activities that pose a threat to our security, primarily from Russia, but also from China.
There is considerable intelligence activity. We are a target for hostile influence operations. The threat of sabotage is a serious concern. There has been a marked increase in economic activities that pose a threat to national security.
Migration is being deliberately used by state actors as a means of exerting pressure…’
I assume the Russians have decided against importing all sorts from elsewhere is the world like we have to bolster their numbers, preferring not to dilute their culture…?
‘The number of foreigners acquiring Russian citizenship fell sharply in 2025, extending a multi-year decline that began after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to Interior Ministry data cited by the Kommersant business daily.
Just 152,400 people received Russian passports last year, down 27.1% from 2024. The figure marks a steep fall from 735,000 in 2021, the last full pre-war year, and 691,000 in 2022. The number dropped further to 378,000 in 2023 and 209,000 in 2024.
The decline reflects both waning interest in Russian citizenship among foreigners and tightening migration policies as authorities step up controls while still relying on migrant labor to support the economy.’
Moscow Times March 2026
Russia are no threat to anyone who doesn’t threaten them.
I have listed all the reasons for Russia’s SMO and why it was more “legal” than NATO countries incursions and more “justified” on this blog post.
https://classicrecords1.wixsite.com/the-sceptic/post/russia-were-justified-in-their-actions-against-ukraine
Europe’s continual goading of Russia may lead to a self-fulfilled war with Russia which will be entirely down to European aggression.
Russia offered Europe a peace treaty whereby they would NOT attack European countries which was never Russia’s intention any way.
Europe chose not to sign it and ignore cheap Russian fuel.
This is all to do with the US plan to Balkanize Russia and contain China to maintain US hegemony and their Unipolar world and to make the world reliant on US fuel and energy supplies.
Hence the US instigated Iraq war, Syrian war, Ukraine war, Venezuelan war, Iran war.
Just follow the money.
Technically it wasn’t a Russian “invasion” of Ukraine.
Russia entered Ukraine “legally” in Feb 2022 to protect the lives of ethnic Russians living in the Donbass for centuries from shelling and death by Ukrainian Banderites, neoNazis, paramilitaries and ultranationalists after the “illegal” US led Maidan coup of 2014.
Between 14 April 2014 to 30 June 2021,13,200–13,400 people were… Read more »
This is supposed to be a Sceptic publication. Why publish this type of news? Why would Russia – the biggest country in the world with 80 regions, many languages and several religions – invade a NATO territory. What for? With what resources? Now, what they might do is to drop a couple of strong bombs (including tactical nuclear) in a NATO territory close to them; considering NATO is de facto at war with Russia via Ukraine, the Russians might warn the irresponsible and childish UK/EU politicians to see if they wake up and realise they have been playing with fire all along. Alternatively what? we expect Russia to surrender and leave the territories in Ukraine? It’s not gonna happen obviously. They are one of the 2 biggest nuclear powers on Earth. Hello? This is all so silly – a la Covid and CO2 – that is hard to comment.
We cannot defend ourselves. We have missing or weak capabilities e.g. airborne early warning aircraft (flying radar stations) – We currently have none after having had 8 E3 AEW&C types from 1991 to about 2016. We are replacing them with 3 Boeing Wedgetails. 3!
And our ammunition stocks are parlous and we have limited capabilities to make more. We don’t make tanks anymore. We are hardly able to make ships. We are hardly able to make whole aircraft. We hardly make any of ournown steel.
This country has been run down by filthy communists. And I include the socialist, blue tories in this.
Additionally there are too many women and feminised men in positions of power. Women don’t want like work that isn’t comfortable and they don’t like war and conict. But war and conflict comes to those who do not provide adequate defence for themselves.
We are in a worse position than we were in the 1930s because we do not have the same level of manufacturing that we had back then.
If the scumbags in No10 sent us to war, we would have many casualties ans lose.
It’s over unless we get a steel man into power.
More drones, less vaccine?
Aside from the cheese paring budget I suggest the UK wants high cost all-singing all-dancing drones whereas Ukraine and Russia have demonstrated the advantage of large numbers of simpler ones. That is not meant to say some more able, re-usable ones are not warranted.
Just spend more and better.
I am getting heartily fed up of reading about Russian scare stories and portraying them as the omnipresent bogeyman. Other than two incursions into a former client state and member of the Soviet block, what aggressive action have Russia taken in recent years? If anything were to kick off between the EU, NATO and Russia, it would be solely due to the aggression on our part. The iron curtain came down with the promise of no Eastern expansion, a promise broken by both the EU and NATO. The Ukraine was meant to be a self determining nation, with guarantees from both NATO and Russia, but Europe and USA knew better and sponsored the overthrow of the pro-Russian administration. The Russian people of the Donbas region rejected that imposition, which included a ban on the teaching of their language in schools and oppression of their customs. We got overexcited by the re-annexation of a former bit of Russia (Crimea) that a former Ukrainian leader of the Soviet Union gifted to the Socialist Republic of Ukraine, removing it from the ownership of Russia, but did little or nothing to object. All in all, if we had just stuck to our commitments of… Read more »
Russian Army invasions:
Wow, you’re really stretching my phrase ‘recent years’ with that list aren’t you. I’ve already discussed the Ukrainian actions. The Afghan attempt to bolster a client government was as moronic as the US attempt to stop the coalition government in Vietnam. The Chechnya offerings are pretty feeble, in the first instance, it was to try and stop the secession from the alliance of former Soviet states and push back the Islamist expansion. It was a bigger disaster for Russia than the current Ukraine situation but they tried to redeem with the second invasion after Chechnya became a failed state to again overthrow the Islamist terrorist government. It only did this to stop the attacks on an ally and the terrorist attacks in Moscow. I think we in the West have done many similar things around the middle east with similar disastrous results, at least the Russians can argue it was right on their border, I think any reasonable assessment of the Georgian war was that Georgia started it and, again, at the behest and meddling in Russian sphere of influence by NATO, who were again trying to push up to the Russian border. With the exception of the Polish invasion,… Read more »
Or not really…
‘…managing the demographic crisis — part of a broader crisis of the reproduction of Russian society itself — can be understood as one of the key reasons behind the invasion. Before February 24, 2022, Ukrainians constituted the key ethnic group among those acquiring Russian citizenship and coming to the country as labor migrants. Now, the Kremlin uses forcefully displaced Ukrainians to refill the population pool with educated, predominantly Slavic, Russian-speaking new citizens. It is no coincidence that Putin repeats that Ukrainians do not exist as a separate nation…two million Crimeans who received Russian citizenship after the annexation in 2014…over 2.8 million Ukrainians who had to move to Russia since the beginning of the invasion, the more than one million people from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions who had to move to Russia over the last eight years of war, as well as those who have stayed in the occupied territories…’
Jacobin April 2023
Exactly! Like Sars-cov and the CO2 scares. And even the supposedly well informed sceptics here take the bait! Remarkable. No wonder the narrative keeps on going. see my comment above. Russia is the biggest country in the world! hello!
There are only so many Russians in the Donbas because Stalin excommunicated the devastated Ukrainian peasant population to Siberia circa 1930 and orchestrated the mass settlement of ethnic Russians in the Donbas region. This ethnic cleansing by Russia is called the Holodomor.
The Donbas was actually entirely Ukranian.
The UK Army is recruiting “re-joiners”, with targets to increase the number of soldiers. Must be a reason or reasons to enlarge the Army.
https://jobs.army.mod.uk/regular-army/entry-options/rejoiner/
I don’t think it is increasing. The top brass have finally realised that no matter how many very expensive pieces of kit you have they don’t work without men. Especially when the number of items of kit is quite as low as it is in the RAF, Navy and tank regiment.
There will be no invasion by Russia. This is a fiction to get more funding for the NATO bureaucracy and the Military Industrial Complex. Just like very virus that’s been around for decades is a World crisis once two or three cases occur. It’s all a con.
Why would Russia invade? What would be the payoff? Does it have the resources?
Also – logistically, how would Russia invade?
March across Poland, Germany and Belgium, then cross the Channel?
With what?
I know dinghy crossings are popular but hardly suitable for military equipment.
Apply very gentle screws and the British Government would have to surrender.
“We don’t exclude a land grab from Russia as part of their plan to protect their own nuclear capabilities, which is the only thing they have left that actually threatens the United States,” said Gen Eirik Kristoffersen, Norway’s chief of defence.’ Feb 2026
We get most of our oil and gas from Norway. How do we deter Russia from invading Norway without rearming? Sweden and Norway combined have more tanks than we do. Finland, population 5.6 million, has 240 tanks. We (will) have 148 soon…ish….
We get 45% of our gas from UK North Sea fields, most of the rest is LNG from the USA.
Most of our oil comes from USA, although Norway supplies about 30% too – although UK is an oil exporter of certain grades.
Since Russia is the richest Country in the world for resources, particularly oil, gas, coal – what kind of mental convolutions are you having to believe it would want to invade Norway? What would it profit?
Perhaps to secure a supply of Viking helmets and gravlaks?
No need for atmospherics; simply read the comment
‘We don’t exclude a land grab from Russia as part of their plan to protect their own nuclear capabilities…’
‘…much of Russia’s nuclear arsenal was located on the Kola peninsula, a short distance from the Norwegian border, including nuclear submarines, land-based missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft. These would be crucial if Russia came into conflict with Nato elsewhere.
“We don’t take that off the table, because it’s still an option for Russia to do that in order to make sure that their nuclear capabilities, their second strike capabilities, are protected. That’s sort of the scenario in the high north that we plan for,”
In 2025, Norway supplied approximately 47% of the UK’s total gas (accounting for roughly 70% of all gas imports) and supplied around 60% of the UK’s imported oil.
North Sea oil. Strategic control of access to mainland Europe. Denial of the use of Europe by the USA for defence.
Russia has 10 – 20 times the exploitable oil that remains in the North Sea. Why would it want North Sea oil?
Isn’t it less expensive for Russia to exploit its own oil than launch a hugely expensive military campaign to get oil in the North Sea?
And just how many soldiers and other military assets would it need to conquer and hold Europe, defend its huge external land border, patrol its coastal waters?
And again why? Why would it want to?
They don’t want North Sea oil. As explained above, Norway is contingency planning: Russia triggers NATO Article 5 by annexing Moldova/the Baltic States and, simultaneously, moves into Norway to protect the Kola peninsula where most of its strategic nuclear deterrent is located.
Again, my thoughts exactly.
My thoughts exactly.
Why would they bother? We’re doing a fine job of destroying ourselves.
Exactly my thoughts.
No need to fire a single gun.
The question is what comprises the 2.6% spending? I know pensions are included, but what other non-military spending is counted as defence?
Those DEI training courses don’t come cheap, you know…
Security services were moved across to bulk up the “defence” total whereas past years and the budgets were not changed. The cost of replacing kit lost in Iraq and Afgan as well as the prospective cost of Chagos was also included.
I just don’t understand why Russia is considered such a threat. They can’t knock over Ukraine in four years, yet we are supposed to be scared of an invasion. What am I missing?
Indeed.
No disrespect to Russia, but, as far as I can see, looking at it from a distance, their military campaign has been a fiasco.
In any case, there is no need for Russia to invade us. Our politicians are perfectly capable of destroying Britain without external help.
The British Government must contingency plan future national sevurity, short, medium and long term. All three terms, given the weaknesses in air defence, border security consistently identified, militate towards significant rearmament.
Medium/long term:
‘Senior Russian military officials have repeatedly stated their intent to rebuild a force capable of large-scale war with NATO…
Russian military reconstitution efforts through 2030 will combine elements of the Russian military’s pre-2022 force structure, its current adaptations for positional warfare, and aspirational precision strike capabilities into a hybrid force, and will not pursue any one of these pathways to the exclusion of the others.
Combat experience in Ukraine will shape the next generation of Russian officers, and the Russian military will integrate learning from Ukraine.’
‘The main lesson of Ukraine is not the obsolescence of tanks and heavy armor, but the fact that no side can achieve its political objectives with missiles and drones alone. If deterrence fails, NATO will need to stop Russian forces, push them back, and defeat them on the ground, an impossible task without tanks and heavy armor.’
Juraj Majcin, Policy Analyst, Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Please don’t read my comments as an indication that I support or like either the Soviet dictators or Putin. They are all odious oppressors of their people and just as we were well rid of Stalin, we will be, at some point well rid of Putin, I just don’t understand why you think Russia is planning an expansionist war with NATO, it has nothing to gain from such folly, and by extension, the only reason it would need to invade Norway is if we threaten them, otherwise their Northern assets are perfectly secure, so your Norwegian invasion argument is a total non-sequitor.
Nothing to do with NATO, everything to do with demography. Putin is intent on reclaiming all Russian speaking populations; demographic imperialism in response to the Russian demographic crisis:
‘And, if you believe the forecasts and the estimates are based on actual work, the real work of people who understand this, who have devoted their whole lives to this, in 15 years, there may be 22 million fewer Russians. I ask you to think about this figure: a seventh of the country’s population. If the current trend continues, the nation’s survival will be in jeopardy’ Putin 2000
‘…the demographic crisis “will jeopardize the country’s defense capability (by 2020, the number of men of military age will be reduced by more than a third, and by 2050, by more than 40 percent)’ 2013
Putin’s response to this crisis?
‘…approximately two million Crimeans who received Russian citizenship after the annexation in 2014…over 2.8 million Ukrainians who had to move to Russia since the beginning of the invasion, the more than one million people from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions who had to move to Russia over the last eight years of war, as well as those who have stayed in the occupied territories,… Read more »
Russia has more to fear of NATO/EU expansion than the West has to fear of Russian expansion.
Can we assume that the military/security wonks have not looked at this issue from the point of view of the Russians. They have as much right to take action on their national security as NATO does. And it is the latter that have provoked the Russians by moving Eastwards when they said they would not do so.
Norway’s army chief has said Oslo cannot exclude the possibility of a future Russian invasion of the country, suggesting Moscow could move on Norway to protect its nuclear assets stationed in the far north.
“We don’t exclude a land grab from Russia as part of their plan to protect their own nuclear capabilities, which is the only thing they have left that actually threatens the United States,” Gen Eirik Kristoffersen, Norway’s chief of defence.’ Feb 2026
We get most of our oil and gas from Norway. How do we deter Russia from invading Norway without armoured divisions (which we don’t currently have) or even drones?
Or even many planes or even ships or even infantry or even the will.
I understand that Russia may be a threat to Norway, for obvious reasons. But what is their threat to the UK?
Ukraine has over 130 manoeuvre brigades and five armoured brigades in order to keep Russia at bay. Britain has one armoured brigade, maybe three manoeuvre brigades. Neither Germany, France, Italy possess even one single armoured division. Poland is rearming but will not deploy outside Poland.
Russia has embarked upon a long term programme of demographic imperialism to compensate for a rapidly disappearing indigenous population.
There will be no cessation, only the occasional pause.
Moldova, the Baltic States, are next. This is no secret. Russia’s long term strategic plan was leaked from the Kremlin some time ago.
We may have contempt for their military competence but, as the man said: ‘Quantity has a quality all of its own’
could you please provide evidence of that strategic plan?
How about the West stops provoking Russia?
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=32423903595&dest=GBR&ref_=ps_ggl_2039220669&cm_mmc=ggl-_-UK_Shopp_Tradestandard-_-product_id=UK9781733647373USED-_-keyword=&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=2039220669&gbraid=0AAAAAD3Y6gs86m0c0f9oTPW_j9Vpu7WLH&gclid=Cj0KCQjww8rQBhDjARIsAE43KPNyzDOuZO222lmwcONE3NA14SBg3qo-tJi2h-C2jraTn8wP2CWlTeQaAmDpEALw_wcB
Ukraine has a will and men who will fight and die to defend their homeland. Brits have been told for decades any homeland we have is to be ashamed of.
The proxy war deal was that the West provides the arms and money and Ukraine provided the blood.
Stop asking awkward questions and suck up the propaganda.
😂