The British Army will be destroyed in "six months to a year" in the event of a major war. This was stated by the Minister of Veterans Affairs Alistair Carnes, Politico reported.
At a conference in London, Carnes explained that the current size of the British army meant that its forces would be out of action within 12 months if there was a conflict of the scale of the one in Ukraine. He pointed out that around 1,500 Russian soldiers are killed or wounded every day in this conflict.
In the words of the minister, "in a large-scale war - not a limited intervention, but similar to Ukraine - our army, for example, at the current levels of casualties, would be spent - as part of a wider multinational coalition - in six months to a year" .
He pointed out that it is important to have a high level of reservists because they are "critical" under these circumstances. "Without them we can't generate mass, we can't do the many defense tasks," Alastair Carnes was emphatic, adding that this did not mean the UK needed a bigger army, but "it meant we needed it quickly to generate depth and mass in case of crisis".
The British Army is at its smallest size since 1700, although in the words of the Deputy Chief of the British Defense Staff, Rob Magowan, "if the British Army was asked to fight tonight, it would fight. tonight".