Russian ships make show of force in UK coastal waters

RUSSIA is “flexing its muscles in Britain’s backyard” after 10 warships arrived off the UK coast, the chief of the Defence Staff has warned.

Two weeks ago nearly a dozen warships and combat aircraft from Russia’s Northern, Baltic and Black Sea fleets gave a “show of force in the waters off the British and Irish coasts”, Gen Sir Nick Carter has said.

Giving his annual speech to the Royal United Services Institute, the defence chief said: “They are flexing their muscles in our own back yard with an ostentation they have not displayed since the Cold War.

“Signalling to the Russian regime that we shall not tamely acquiesce should they escalate requires conventional hard power – warships and aircraft – as well as less conventional capabilities like cyber.

“It requires us to hold their backyard at risk, whether that’s in the Barents Sea, the High North, the Baltic or the Black Sea.”

Sir Nick also said the long anticipated Integrated Review of foreign, defence and security policy, now expected in January, will herald the biggest shakeup in a generation. Without listing specific equipment plans. Sir Nick hinted l ong- range precision rockets, air defence missiles and surveillance drones would be brought into service.

“The Army will undergo its most comprehensive modernisation since the Eighties … It will experiment its way to robotic and autonomous capabilities.

“[However] when you’re up against a determined opponent on the battlefield you have to go close and personal with your enemy. I’m afraid it’s too early to plot the demise of the tank.”

Sir Nick has been head of the Armed Forces since June 2018. Although hailing the recent £24.1 billion uplift in defence spending as reversing a “long period of decline”, Sir Nick did not say how much will fill the existing “black hole” of around £10 billion in the Mod’s 10-year equipment budget.