Britain is losing the will to stand up to Putin

War has a dynamic of its own and the ability of an army to adapt quickly is at the heart of that dynamic. The First World War generals were lampooned for their lack of imagination, but it took time to transform a citizen army into an integrated all arms force that ultimately succeeded in the Hundred Days campaign of 1918. Both Ukraine and Russia face the same challenge now. Whoever can adapt and transform their military fastest and best will prevail.

For Vladimir Putin and General Sergey Surovikin, the challenge is to forge a new force capable of mounting another offensive in the spring, but they lack many of the necessary building blocks. Their conscripts have little motivation and lack low-level leadership. There is no tradition of a non-commissioned officer corps in the Soviet/russian military system. Such a system is the backbone and powerhouse of most Western armies, certainly of the British Army.

As bad for Surovikin is the realisation that the corruption in the Russian military procurement process has spawned weapons of an inferior quality to those of Nato and the West. All this and more will translate into a cumbersome force which will once more rely on mass and dumb artillery. Stalin famously quipped that quantity has a quality all of its own, but in Ukraine this dictum is likely only to produce a very large number of dead Russian young men reluctantly masquerading as soldiers.

For Volodymyr Zelensky and General Valerii Zaluzhnyi the challenge to craft the means of mounting a decisive campaign is mirrored and the odds are in their favour, but the outcome is not a given. Yes, Ukrainians both in and out of uniform have a ferocious determination to win this war and preserve their chosen way of life and they are receiving much Western support to do so. But not enough.

Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine has benefitted from Western training teams, notably from the UK, working with their military to begin a transformation process that has ramped up dramatically since the Russian invasion of February 24 last year. Hitherto Western support, cheerled by the British and largely enabled by the Americans, has provided Ukraine with the means not to lose this war.

Gifted modern short range anti-tank weapons, such as Javelin and NLAW, destroyed the initial Russian attack, the Starlink satellite system transformed Ukraine’s command and control and the Himars precision long-range artillery has wreaked havoc amongst the Russian logistic system – but only now is the West beginning to heed the Ukrainian pleas for an offensive capability.

The French are about to provide AMX-10 light tanks, the US are donating 50 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and the Germans are turning over much of their fleet of Marder armoured personnel carriers. And the British? The cheerleader seems to have lost her voice.

So, why is the UK not matching the US, French or German offers of modern land manoeuvre capability? The harsh reality is that we have little to give. The years of underfunding the British Army have come into stark focus. The CVR(T) series of light armoured vehicles are of 1970s design and have no place on a modern manoeuvre battlefield, nor do the protected patrol vehicles procured for the counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our Challenger main battle tanks are in dire need of an upgrade as are our Warrior infantry fighting vehicles. However, the latter were deemed to be too expensive to upgrade, so the Warriors are being taken out of service. The Ajax medium tank does not work, and the Boxer armoured personnel carriers have not been delivered. Which brings the spotlight back to the Warrior vehicles. If we are about to prematurely retire them, would it not be better to gift them to the Ukrainians?

The British Army has been exercising in Poland for many years. We are experienced in moving armoured vehicles there. Trainers could familiarise Ukrainian infantry soldiers eager to learn. Let us at least allow Ukraine to get some value from these vehicles before we scrap them.

Delay risks defeat. Up to this point, we have helped prevent Ukraine losing the war against Putin. Now we must help them win it.