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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doyle
July 20, 2025 at 7:41 am
Hreh, sleepwalkin’ into war with Russia, issa really heavy understatement.
More accurately, Britain is hellbent on goosemarching into war with the untermensch russkies with eyes fully closed.
Nothin’ bad will happen.
Because Britain has the US to its back.
But what if the US also starts marching into war against the dirty unclean unwashed unshaved moscovites.
Hell, the russkies will employ status-6 or poseidons to splash Britain with giant tsunamis.
Game over for the brit royal family. And for London.
Game over for starmer.
Jim
July 20, 2025 at 12:13 pm
It’s a sad thing which happened to the European leaders.
Before the February 24, 2022 invasion Europe’s leaders were cautious & wary about the prospects of war on the European Continent, as they should of been.
But shortly before the outbreak of war something snapped and their attitudes underwent a dramatic transformation and suddenly they were all in… and have been ever since… with one ridiculous proposal after another… given their relative financial & military weakness.
My contention: Stockholm Syndrome (or the greedy prospect of the fruits of victory). In Stockholm Syndrome a person is held hostage by kidnappers, bank robbers, or terrorists, and after a period of time the person or people begin to identify with the hostage takers, what they want, and sometimes will engage on the side their captors in a new scheme or plan of action.
This seems to be what’s happened (again, I can’t dismiss the possibility that greed played a part).
At this point whatever the motivation really is these leaders are like moths to the flame, they can’t help themselves.
Frankly, this is an outgrowth of Trump’s failed & weak leadership on Ukraine. Said he would end it quickly, as if he could just snap his fingers, and poof, the war would be over.
Turned out the new boss was the same as the old boss and we got a Biden 2.0 policy.
And, Trump hasn’t had his diplomatic corps fan out across the capitols of Europe to counsel against deeper involvement in Ukraine… a basic if you truly wanted to end the war, but because Trump flies by the seat of his pants and has been flailing about in a circle of contradictory statements and actions it has left the Europeans on their own…
… and they’ve in turn kept on going with the same momentum or inertia they’ve exhibited during the course of the war.
I’d be more worried, but Britain, France, and Germany’s militaries are in no shape to go to war… especially Britain’s armed forces.
Out in the American West we say, “all hat and no cattle” or “money talks b.s. walks.”
That’s where the European leaders are these days and as we also say in America, their citizens are “getting taken for a ride.”
Swamplaw Yankee
July 21, 2025 at 3:38 am
Yes, this op-ed is just so timely. General Sanders needs much more exposure on the MSM. The Public reader ( particularly inside GB) needs to re-read his observations multiple times in multiple media. Somewhat like a Browder persona.
The funding by taxpayers needs to appear now. The actions that he speaks of need initiation immediately, like, yesterday.
Funding a secure budget is critical and cash must appear immediately for a mass distribution. That is, a mass of rotating troops need the exposure today, training and creating skill levels only available in the field. The British army of novices needs to experience Ukraine in its eleventh year of war in person, today. The new drone tech warfare is not going to appear magically anywhere in British controlled territory!
Junior and Senior British officers need to be exposed to a re-adjustment now.
Western Ukraine is a start for the novice British, a reality where orc ruskie child molesters would be very pleased to drone kill/maim any slow witted soldier.
The mass movement of rotating troops means that significant numbers of troops return “Home” with the psychology of the new “ruskie” killer an open existential topic they can share with those stranded, protected inside a temporary safe Britain. It is not a secret of the past 11 years that the orc ruskie molesters mass abduct Ukrainian children for their vile pleasures.
The con of an eventual cease fire as a duty for the British must be debated. The British force may first need to grasp that the orc ruskie need to “Lolita” little Ukrainian children goes back to 1066. The Ukrainian fathers had to fight orc ruskie sex traders in 1616 just as they fight the mass abducters today. The ancient genetic need of the orc ruskie woman/man to “Lolita” children respects no cease fire. This is a culture genocide, not a war.
The British exposure to border control/warfare in the past needs urgent drone updating. Can any part of Britain handle thousands of drone strikes per night? Any dozen of orc ruskie ships can sail close to major British urban areas and release tens of thousands of russian drones. Can the Putin submarine forces be detected/controlled?
The reality of ethnic psychology must be considered. Britain has no time to wait for French, German, etc., psychology to process Putin’s repeated coded red line threats. Britain has to have the skilled ( prepared ) military to defend “Today” not some fantasy best time in the vague future.
Putin’s muscovite tsar elite may hate Britain for its cognitive abilities. The British gestault was the first to assist the Ukrainians because the British were the first to process + perceive the orc ruskie “kitman”.
The second world war remains a useful analogy. The British army was thrashed in the fields of France. Luckily, the Canadian Army was armed and present inside Britain to counter a possible immediate invasion by Hitler’s armour. In 2025, the British can be sure that there will be zero Canadian Army inside Britain to offer skilled or even any military assistance whatsoever.
What the British can speculate about is the degree to which the Putin FSB cell networks have long-time penetrated into many agencies and institutions, like the BBC.
-30-
Jim
July 21, 2025 at 8:39 am
Spoken like a true Banderite nut job… you wonder how somebody gets so deep into Stepan Bandera that they start mumbling about having the British rotate into Western Ukraine… with a bunch of other self-incriminating gibberish about who knows what.
But here’s the thing: these Banderites, specifically Zelensky (he probably isn’t hardcore Banderite, himself, but simply an opportunist, but he does the Banderite’s bidding) has see off a million dead Ukrainian soldiers, so there’s no doubt Zelensky & crew would happily see British, French, and German soldiers die on their behalf… not to mention American soldiers.
Don’t kid yourself, Zelensky would be all on board for a million dead American soldiers if he could get it.
And, the worst? There are war supporters here in America who are so desperate to hang on to their fevered dreams of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia that they would gladly send a million Americans to their death if it would work to save their Ukraine policy.
How sick is that?