Starmer prepares for attack by Russia
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/05/05/starmer-prepares-for-attack-by-russia/
by weregonnamakit
Starmer prepares for attack by Russia
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/05/05/starmer-prepares-for-attack-by-russia/
by weregonnamakit
29 comments
“Ministers fear that Britain would not only be outgunned by Russia and its allies on the battlefield but would also be unprepared and poorly defended at home”
I’m so glad all the warnings of the last decade were just Project Fear. You remember Project Fear right, Telegraph?
Do you know how many of us have sank our spare time into call of duty our whole lifes. Equip us with an AR, a secondary, some lethal and none lethals and we are good to go….in other news he won’t invade shit, the Russians can’t take Ukraine at the moment
Unless we have a total overhaul of recruitment and retention then we’ll have serious issues, outsourcing everything to private companies just leads to a race to the bottom which has clearly not worked out.
Russia is barely achieving anything in Ukraine. The telegraph wants to scare people into thinking Russia could handle NATO? Geez.
The armed forces are traditionally made up of working class men aged 18 to 30.
Given that this cohort has been belittled, told they are racist, misogynistic incompetent numpties, seen their life chances greatly reduced, seen their towns be ravaged by under investment, seen a parade of politicians say “we know how you feel” before kicking them again and seen the system fail them time and time again, why would any of them take up arms to defend “their” land?
Britain is secretly preparing for a direct military attack by Russia amid fears that it is not ready for war.
Officials have been asked to update 20-year-old contingency plans that would put the country on a war footing after threats of attack by the Kremlin.
A classified dossier will set out how the Government would respond to a declaration of war, including bunkers to protect the Cabinet and the Royal family, public service broadcasts and the stockpiling of resources.
Ministers fear that Britain would not only be outgunned by Russia and its allies on the battlefield but would also be unprepared and poorly defended at home.
Kremlin officials have repeatedly threatened the UK with a direct attack over its support for Ukraine, which may soon include British troops on the ground.
Experts have warned that the country is vulnerable to an assault on its critical national infrastructure, including gas terminals, undersea cables, nuclear power plants and transport hubs.
The Telegraph understands that an update to the classified “homeland defence plan” will set out a strategy for the days immediately after a strike on the UK mainland by a hostile foreign state.
It will include scenarios in which Britain is hit by conventional missiles, nuclear warheadsor cyber operations, which were a limited threat when the last significant update to the plan was made before 2005.
The plan, by the Cabinet Office’s Resilience Directorate, will direct the Prime Minister and Cabinet on how to run a wartime government and when they should seek shelter in the Downing Street bunker or outside London.
The war strategies for the rail and road networks, courts, postal system and phone lines are all expected to be examined. It is unlikely that the document will be released to the public for decades, if at all.
The Cabinet Office has already modelled a scenario in which a hostile state launched missiles and cyber attacks on national infrastructure at the same time.
A risk assessment, published in January, found that a successful attack was “likely to result in civilian fatalities as well as members of the emergency services”, cause serious economic damage and disrupt essential services.
Defence officials have also called for Britain to develop its own form of Israel’s Iron Dome to protect it from missile attacks.
Last month, a senior RAF official revealed that, if the first night of the Ukraine conflicthad played out in the UK, Russian missiles would have broken through British defences and destroyed infrastructure targets.
Russia, China and Iran all claim to have developed hypersonic missiles that can travel at up to 10 times the speed of sound and evade defences more easily than a conventional ballistic missile.
British officials are especially concerned about gas terminals and the country’s five active nuclear power stations, which could release radioactive material across the country and cause “significant prolonged long-term security, health, environmental and economic impacts” if struck, according to a Whitehall assessment.
The Government has also modelled the likelihood and effects of a nuclear missile attack on the UK, but the official conclusions of that review remain classified.
The new contingency plan will, for the first time, address cyber warfare – which spy chiefs have said is now one of the most dangerous threats the UK faces.
State-sponsored hackers have the power to shut down traffic networks, cause power cuts and temporarily close down government departments.
Ken McCallum, the director of MI5, said in October that the number of state threats investigated by the agency had increased by 48 per cent in a year, and that Russia had increased its cyber attacks because of the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s sabre-rattling against the UK has continued despite Donald Trump’s plan for a peace deal in Ukraine. Last month, ministers officially designated Russia a national security threat for the first time.
The plan is modelled on the War Book, a secret Cold War dossier of instructions on how the government should respond to a nuclear attack, which has since been published in the National Archives.
The War Book included evacuation plans for the prime minister and key members of the Cabinet, who would be moved to a bunker in the Cotswolds if London was bombed. Queen Elizabeth II would have escaped to safety on the royal yacht.
Under the same plan, Britain would be divided into 12 zones, each governed by Cabinet ministers, senior military officers, chief constables and judges with special powers. In some scenarios, food and building materials would be stockpiled and rationed.
The BBC would be instructed to play public service announcements on how to shelter from missiles, and the country’s most important artworks would be removed from London to Scotland for safety.
The planning comes as ministers prepare to release Labour’s Strategic Defence Review, which will examine the state of the Armed Forces.
The Ministry of Defence has said the review will include “options to reinforce homeland security”, which may include developing stronger defences against missiles. It will also look at the readiness of the Armed Forces for war after decades of declining troop numbers.
Sir Keir has said the UK will spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence from 2027, but ministers and service chiefs have not yet agreed on how the money should be spent.
A Government spokesman said: “The UK has robust plans in place for a range of potential emergencies that have been developed and tested over many years.”
It would be stupid not to. We should have plans for all kinds of scenarios, including Orange Man taking military action of some kind, and aliens invading.
They’ve already attacked us… multiple times and still are.
We’re already at war with them just below the arbitrary limits of what we call one.
We’ve already been attacked.
They poisoned people in British soil and interfered in our elections. Nigel Farage is walking proof.
>Officials have been asked to update 20-year-old contingency plans
That’s the story. They’re updating plans based off what has been learned from Ukraine. Story over.
Russia is already attacking the UK. I mean Farage is right there…
lol good luck rallying the population for this.
You won’t catch me dying for this country.
A United eu military sounds pretty good right now, eh, telegraph?
Why is this newspaper even posted here?
Russia is not attacking the UK. Putin doesnt want to die in a nuclear war. Even if he does I doubt the chain of command does and will refuse the order and overthrow Putin
This is just nonsense clickbait fearmongering designed to get you to click and accept cookies on your device
So, good? I’d rather be prepared for an attack that doesn’t happen than unprepared for one that does
It’s preparing 20 year old contingency plans that don’t adequately account for a lot of modern, particularly cyber, warfare. It frankly should be something that is reviewed and updated regularly.
This just feels like a mountain out of a molehill.
I’m not fighting in a war that was started by rich megalomaniacs.
If people weren’t so brainwashed into believing that to die fighting for your country is an honourable death, then these corrupt dictators would have no one to fight their wars. We are not pawns.
What an awful headline, I’d though they were lining up the A-bombs for London at first glance.
Don’t they always say this around the pay review times?
Probably just trying to soften the blow to the nhs, teachers etc when they get an even shorter pay rise than the military
What I’m most worried about is a Soviet union 2.0, and it’s not as unrealistic as you probably think it is.
It’s very possible that Russia are planning to annex Odesa oblast, and if they do, they will have a land border with Romania, and what are they trying to do in Romania right now? Elect a puppet. If Romania elect a Russian puppet, Russia would have a land border with Serbia and Hungary, and which countries border Hungary? Slovakia and Austria…..
We must do everything we can to stop the above from happening, and be prepared to fight if it does.
If anything, it’s a win for Putin to make potential adversaries _think_ they’re going to attack. They can waste their energy bankrupting themselves to gear up for a war that won’t come, while Russia concentrates on its real targets.
I thought they had already started with their cyber attacks on M&S, NHS etc. That is the sort of war they will conduct, also by cutting under sea cables.
The UK and Europe have already been under attack. WTF is this crap.
Cutting under-sea cables, sabotaging arms manufacturers across Europe. Cyber Warfare. It’s all been happening.
Torygraph is the new Mail
Alarmist, non contextual headlines, what a rag
Should be banned from all UK subs
Can’t he prepare for an attack from Farage or something serious for once?
Keep your eyes peeled for a false flag from our government – who ever remembers the USS Maine?
He couldn’t prepare himself for an attack from a chicken at KFC, let alone Russia
My father was a toolmaker. Now go die in a trench or you’re a right-wing thug. Something-something.
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