The UK must prepare for war with Russia within the next five years, a former army chief has warned.
General Sir Patrick Sanders said that the UK needed to accept a war with Vladimir Putin by the end of the decade was a "realistic possibility".
Sanders, who stood down as Chief of the General Staff last summer, argued that the Government had been given many "signals" to realise that it must act to increase the nation's resilience.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Sanders said: "If Russia stops fighting in Ukraine, you get to a position where within a matter of months they will have the capability to conduct a limited attack on a Nato member that we will be responsible for supporting, and that happens by 2030.
Sanders encouraged the UK to take note of how Finland has prepared its defence
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"It always came down to a conversation of it being too costly and not a high enough priority, and the threat didn't feel sufficiently imminent or serious to make it worth it."
"I don't know what more signals we need for us to realise that if we don't act now and we don't act in the next five years to increase our resilience … I don't know what more is needed."
Sanders warned the Government about the need to build bomb shelters for civilians and underground command centres for the military, in case of an attack.
The former army chief said the UK should take inspiration from Finland with their preparations.
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Sanders explained: "Finland has bomb shelters for 4.5million people. It can survive as a Government and as a society under direct missile and air attacks from Russia. We don't have that.
"Take the countries that are very alive to the threat - Estonia, Poland, the Nordics - Governments there take a really proactive, serious approach to making sure the population realise that they could be attacked at almost any time.
"And so they give them a set of instructions on how to prepare for the consequences of that."
These instructions include how to cope with a loss of power or fuel, how to store food, and how to encourage people to have their own defensive bunkers and volunteer for civil defence roles.
Sanders pictured meeting King Charles III
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Sanders fell out of favour with the Government for being deemed too outspoken about troop cuts.
Under the Conservatives, it was announced that the army would be reduced by 8,500 personnel, down to 72,500, cutting troop numbers to the lowest levels since Napoleonic times.
Sanders added: "At the moment, the British Army is too small to survive more than the first few months of an intensive engagement, and we're going to need more.
"Now, the first place you go to is the reserves, but the reserves are also too small. 30,000 reserves still only takes you to an army of 100,000."
Sir Keir Starmer has committed to spending five per cent of the UK's GDP on national security within 10 years.
Speaking to GB News' Katherine Forster, Starmer said: "We've already increased our defence spend to 2.5 per cent in 2027, and I've been absolutely clear where the money for that comes from.
"We've cut the overseas development aid budget and we will now make commitments, Nato commitments to five per cent."