General Sir Richard Shirreff warned without effective military deterrence Britain’s ‘sons and daughters’ face having to go to war with Russia
A former Nato commander has warned that without effective military deterrence, Europe faces a war with Russia that Britain’s children and grandchildren would have to fight and die in.
In a stark message, General Sir Richard Shirreff, the ex-Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe of Nato, urged Sir Keir Starmer to issue a “call of realism” after the alliance’s secretary general Mark Rutte warned Russia could attack a member state within five years.
“The only way war with Russia is to be averted between Europe and Russia is if Europe steps up and properly deters Russia,” Shirreff told The i Paper.
“We need a similar clarion call of realism from Keir Starmer that says we’ve got to tell it to the British people as it is – which is that unless there is effective deterrence your sons and grandchildren and daughters are going to be facing a war with Russia.
“And a lot of them are not going to come home from it.
“It’s going to be another era where white Commonwealth war graves, Portland headstones, are going to be covering large amounts of Eastern Europe.”
The only way to avoid war was by the Government boosting Britain’s “shamefully depleted” armed forces, which currently stands at 147,300 full-time personnel and build national resilience to ensure society is ready for conflict with Vladimir Putin, he said.
“It’s going to mean mobilisation of the economy, moving from consumer goods to making drones and that sort of thing. To prepare for war,” he added.
He branded peace plans for Ukraine pushed by Donald Trump’s administration as a “heist” by the US President, whom he labelled a “mafia boss”.
British army soldiers take part in Nato exercises on the Estonian-Latvian border (Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)
In a letter to The Times, General Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British Army, said the “price of peace through deterrence” was 3.5 per cent of GDP spent on defence, a figure the Government pledged to hit by 2035 in line with a Nato target. Nato estimates the UK spends 2.4 per cent of GDP on defence but this will rise to 2.5 per cent by 2027.
Lord Dannat challenged Starmer to show whether he had the “courage” to meet that target, and to answer whether he was a “politician or statesman”.
He added: “Appeasement failed in 1939, and a disastrous war followed. Churchill’s leadership ensured our survival.
“We owe it to our sons and grandsons not to condemn them to the horrors experienced by our grandfathers.”
Russia has been on a war footing since launching its full-scale invasion in February, 2022, with its factories mass producing drones, missiles and artillery shells.
A recent report by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, found Moscow was producing around 150 tanks, 550 infantry fighting vehicles, 120 Lancet drones and more than 50 artillery pieces each month.
But the UK and its European allies are struggling to match Putin’s war machine.
At current rates of procurement, Germany would re-establish its 2004 capabilities in combat aircraft in about 15 years, in tanks, roughly 40 years – and in howitzers in only about 100 years, according to the Kiel Institute.
By contrast, it said, the Kremlin could produce the equivalent of Germany’s entire arsenal in just over half a year.
As the threat of conflict with Russia grows, Shirreff has previously called for the Government to consider bringing back conscription.
France is reintroducing a limited form of military service for 18 and 19-year-olds, 25 years after conscription was scrapped.
Belgium and the Netherlands have introduced a voluntary military service, while Germany is also launching a new conscription plan to boost troop numbers from 182,000 to 260,000 over the next 10 years, with an additional 200,000 reservists.
As part of its controversial push for an end to the war, the US has proposed Ukraine withdraw from the Donetsk region Russia has been unable to seize..
The plan would see a demilitarized zone created in heavily fortified areas in Donbas which Ukraine currently controls, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
Shirreff said Washington’s plan for a demilitarised, or special economic, zone in the Donbas was “shameful collusion” between Putin and Trump.
“The Trump deal, which forces Ukraine’s capitulation and forces some so-called demilitarised zone, if that happens all that is going to take place is Putin will rebuild his arms forces, and when he’s ready, he will have another go,” he said.
“The Russians will have an open road to Kyiv, and they’ll use that.”
Mykola Bielieskov, a senior analyst at Come Back Alive, a Ukrainian foundation and major procurer of military equipment for Kyiv’s armed forces, called for an international peacekeeping force to guarantee the status of any demilitarised zone.
Ukraine’s constitution states only a referendum can settle issues of territories, he said, while asking its armed forces to make a unilateral withdrawal from positions it currently controls is “politically difficult”.
“But for Russia all these ideas which create major dilemmas for Ukraine leadership fits perfectly into their plan to create and exploit fissures inside and outside Ukraine,” he said.
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “We are in a new era of threat, which demands a new era for UK defence, and our landmark Strategic Defence Review sets a vision to make Britain safer, secure at home and strong abroad.
“The SDR sets out how we’re moving to warfighting readiness, with investment in air and missile defence, munitions factories and an increase in the size of the Army.
“This is backed by the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War – hitting 2.6% of GDP by 2027 – and an extra £5bn for defence this year alone ensuring no return to the hollowed out and underfunded Armed Forces of the past.”