Vladimir Putin has Britain in his crosshairs as expert warns UK army has 'never been so weak'
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Vladimir Putin views the British army as being weak and ill-prepared, a military expert has warned.
Glen Grant, a former British Lieutenant-Colonel, said that the UK has never been more vulnerable than right now to an attack from Russia.
It comes after reports stating the Government has no national plan for defence in the threat of a war emerged.
Grant, who served for 37 years in the armed forces, said: “I think Russia thinks we're a bunch of namby-pambies and probably just waiting until they can actually stuff Ukraine, so to speak, before they move on to someone else.
Vladimir Putin has Britain in his crosshairs as expert warns UK army has 'never been so weak'
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“Britain is particularly vulnerable because we're an island and we rely on all the things like our cables running everywhere,” he told The Express.
“I mean, we've never been so weak militarily. Maybe between the (World) wars we were, but we're clearly in a bad place at the moment.”
He slammed politicians for not taking the threat of war more seriously and urged the Government to invest more money and energy into bolstering its defence forces.
Grant also said there needed to be an overhaul in how internal personnel view military campaigns, with the former lieutenant colonel stating that many had been charred from their experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Last month, Nato was urged to bring back conscription amid fears about Russia’s threat to the West.
Two Baltic leaders put pressure on the defence bloc to prepare for a potential armed confrontation with Vladimir Putin’s troops.
Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics stressed the need to ramp up spending to levels not seen since the end of the Cold War.
He also claimed Nato should discuss the return of compulsory military service to boost defence forces’ manpower.
Earlier this year, General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing head of the British Army, said that ministers should “mobilise the nation” in the event of a wider conflict against Russia.
General Sir Patrick Sanders has said that Britain should brace itself to fight a war in the futurePA
Putin views the British army as being weak and ill-prepared, a military expert has warned.
ReutersThe General stated that the military is “too small” to handle the conflict on its own.
Professor Anthony Glees, a security and intelligence expert at the University of Buckingham, said that Britons must be ready to go to war against Russia “within six years” unless Putin is defeated.
He told the Daily Mirror: “The UK Government should plan to sign up volunteers now and over the next three years and 'the whole of the nation' should prepare for conscription within six years unless Putin were defeated.”
He then referred to what General Sanders said about increasing the number of troops to 120,000 by 2027, while also increasing the amount of GDP we spend on defence to 2.5 per cent – “ideally three”.