Entire UK Army Would Be Destroyed In 6 To 12 Months Of War, Minister Warns

The entire British Army would be destroyed in six months to a year if it was pulled into a major conflict and lost troops at the same rate as Russia, according to the veterans minister.

There are currently 71,347 full-time, trained troops in the army, which is the force’s smallest size since the 1700s Napoleonic era.

Defence secretary John Healey has already warned that it is expected to decline below 70,000.

Speaking to the Royal United Services Institute think tank, Colonel Alistair Carns pointed out how Vladimir Putin is racking up around 1,500 casualties per day in the Ukraine war.

He said: “In a war of scale — not a limited intervention but one similar to Ukraine — our army, for example on the current casualty rates, would be expended, as part of a broader multinational coalition, in six months to a year.”

But Putin is aspiring to lead the second largest army in the world, with 1.5 million active troops– and leaning on soldiers recruited from North Korea – meaning it’s probably easier to absorb those losses.

However, Carns suggested the UK did not need to emulate Putin’s approach.

He said: “That doesn’t mean we need a bigger army, but it does mean you need to generate depth and mass rapidly in the event of crisis.”

Carns pointed out that Russia is already on its third army – and that major powers now see “attrition” as crucial to victory in modern day warfare.

He added that it was key to have plenty of reservists, saying: “The reserves are absolutely central to that process. Without them we cannot generate mass, we cannot meet the plethora of defence tasks.”

One of the UK’s most senior military chiefs as head of strategic command, General Sir Jim Hockenhull, also added: “The stakes are clear: if we fail to act we risk falling further behind.”

The quarterly service personnel statistics army reserve force has found that there is 25,814 strong, although there are more veterans who are not in the reservers.

Those who left the service within 18 years and are younger than 55 can be compelled to take up arms in a crisis, too.

However, the deputy chief of the British defence staff, Rob Magowan, said last month: “If the British Army was asked to fight tonight, it would fight tonight.”

Still, Carns’ warning comes as Putin continues to amplify his threats against Ukraine’s allies.

After the UK (and the US) finally gave Ukraine permission to use their long-range missiles to target sites within Russia, Putin threatened to bomb the UK last month.

The Russian president said: “In response to the use of American and British long-range weapons on November 21 of this year, the Russian armed forces launched a combined strike on one of the facilities of the Ukrainian defence industry.

“One of the newest Russian medium-range missile systems was tested in combat conditions, in this case, with a ballistic missile in a non-nuclear hypersonic warhead.”