Key Points and Summary – The former head of the British Army, Gen. Sir Patrick Sanders, has issued a stark warning that the United Kingdom must prepare for a potential war with Russia within the next five years.
-In a sobering interview, Sanders argued that the UK is “public enemy number one” for the Kremlin due to its leadership in supporting Ukraine.
-He criticized the government for failing to invest in essential civil defenses like bomb shelters and called for a significant increase in the size of the army, which he deems “too small to survive” a high-intensity conflict.
Russia is Coming for NATO and the UK
LONDON, UK – In a recent interview with The Telegraph, British Gen. Sir Patrick Sanders, who stood down as chief of the General Staff last summer, had a number of sobering predictions about Russia’s military threat to Britain.
He made several recommendations for what the United Kingdom should do now if it hopes to be ready for future challenges from Moscow.
Sanders said the UK needs to start by accepting that war with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces by 2030 is a realistic possibility – London therefore must prepare for hostilities with Russia within five years. Necessary first steps include building bunkers and investing in air defenses, the former Army head warned.
He explained that during his time as the head of the British Army, he had engaged in unsuccessful conversations with the government about building bomb shelters for civilians and underground command centers for the military to use in the event of an attack.
“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,” Sanders recalled.
His statements are some of the most direct to date regarding the threat the UK faces from Moscow. Sanders added that he did not know how many more “signals” the British government requires to realize 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.”
Russia is Coming By 2030 – But We Are Not Prepared
“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 said in the same interview.
The former army chief added that funding for the UK’s air defenses is “much lower” than it should be and urged the government to direct more resources into this area. He said he did not believe the United Kingdom needs an air defense system such as Israel’s Iron Dome. But he did say “similar protection” against threats, and shielding civilians from “the enemy’s drones” should be part of the military’s “next big evolution.”
New funding should be directed to buttressing backup systems, so that the country can still function if critical infrastructure such as gas storage, power generation, and data centers is destroyed by an adversary.
The former rifleman’s criticisms of what he saw as multiple shortcomings in defense planning brought Sanders into disagreement with the government too often.
In particular, he was deemed as being too outspoken on troop cuts, and he continues to assert that reducing the size of the Army is the wrong move, especially now.
“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,” he said.
Why Training Really Matters
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised at the start of this year to put boots on the ground in Ukraine as part of a coalition to oversee an eventual ceasefire.
Sanders favors such a move, but says it should be happening now.
“We’ve been at the leading edge of this, but we can’t take our eye off it, and we probably need to do more,” he said.
“Incidentally, I think the Coalition of the Willing is something that gets deployed after there has been some framework or ceasefire. Well, I’d say we should be there now, training. We should be in western Ukraine, helping the Ukrainians with their training and their equipment.”
He also had some sobering comments regarding training.
“When we train Ukrainian soldiers, they go into the field with five weeks of training. Now that is more than the Russian soldiers receive. But consider that when the troops hit the beach on D-Day in June 1944 every soldier had at least 22 weeks of training under their belts.” Given the complexities of today’s weapons systems, five weeks of training is not nearly enough, in Sanders’ estimation as well as others.
When asked by The Telegraph which country was next on Putin’s hit list, he said: “I think we are close to being public enemy number one, because it was the UK that really galvanized the international community’s response in the early days of the Ukraine war.
“I’m really proud that actually our political leaders and the government drew a line and said, ‘No, this is unacceptable.’ There’s a long history of mistrust and animosity between the UK and Russia.”
“We’re not the most powerful opponent that they would say they face, but because we are good at setting an example, because we’re good at galvanizing international opinion, because we are good at diplomacy, we’re good at convening, then we punch well above our weight on issues like this and it’s right that we do.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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