British Army deemed ‘too small’ as Keir Starmer tipped to make Ukraine defence pledge | UK | News | EUROtoday

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Defence consultants have raised the alarm over the dimensions of the British Army, warning it could possibly be too small to assist defend Ukraine as soon as Russia’s warfare ends.

Sending the troops to Ukraine to help with peacekeeping efforts has reportedly been a problem being mentioned between Sir Keir Starmer and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in latest days.

British troopers can be joined by French troops to guard the nation as soon as Russia’s males pulled out of the war-torn territory, as a part of a joint Franco-British mission.

The Prime Minister issued his strongest indication but that he’s open to the thought on Thursday evening, throughout a joint press convention in Ukraine with Mr Zelensky. However, he stopped wanting making an outright dedication.

Sir Keir mentioned: “We will work with you and all of our allies on steps that would guarantee robust enough to guarantee Ukraine’s security.”

But former main army officers have urged that Britain might wrestle to assist Kyiv.

Sir Richard Dannatt, former Army head, advised The i Paper: “I don’t think the size of our Army is large enough to do that with everything else that it’s doing currently. I think we would struggle.

“We could do it, but then we would have to certainly put more resources into the Army, and set about growing the size of the Army. It’s a major issue that relates directly to the future size of the British Army. You start to run out of troops quite quickly.”

Ex-Army chiefs consider between 5,000 and 10,000 British troops can be wanted to assist hold the peace beneath the plans.

Hamish de Bretton-Goron, a former commander in Iraq, mentioned this might put a “huge amount” of stress on the nation’s defence finances.

He mentioned: “We have such a small Army, we’ve taken so much risk with defence that if we did this, we would be able to do nothing else”.

This shouldn’t be the primary time the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been warned in regards to the dimension of the Army, with consultants and politicians having raised the alarm for years.

In 2023, Labour MP Dan Jarvis advised Express.co.uk: “MPs on all sides of the house feel we are not investing enough resources in our defence capability. Take the size of the army, it is smaller than it has been for hundreds of years.

“The terminology the Government makes use of is that it’s ‘refreshing’ the Integrated Review, I’m not satisfied that vital piece of labor is on the appropriate trajectory to verify we reverse the reductions which have taken place.

“The army is too small and we need to invest in our land capability to make sure the forces are appropriately sized.”

Since then, the federal government has pledged ramp up defence spending to 2.5% of GDP every year. NATO pointers state that every member state ought to spend not less than 2%.

But some declare that extra continues to be wanted to assist Britain fight rising threats going through the nation.

Lord Stirrup, a crossbench peer and former chief of the defence employees, advised the House of Lords: “Investment in defence needs to be above 3% of GDP, not the 2.5% that the government say that they aspire to but for which they have not so far set out a firm plan.

“It is worth saying that 3% of GDP for the UK, allowing for all the accounting changes that have taken place in recent years, would not be much more than we were spending in 2010, when Europe was not facing a severe threat from Russia.”

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2001844/british-army-too-small-ukraine-keir-starmer