UK military would run out of ammo in one day against Russia: General

The British military’s supply of ammunition would run dry in just one day in a direct engagement with Russia as a result of years of spending cuts to the nation’s defence, a former top general has warned.

General Sir Richard Barrons, who formerly served as the Joint Forces chief, claimed that spending cuts have depleted the British military to such an extent that, in a hot war with Russia, the UK would run out of ammunition and artillery shells within just one day.

According to research conducted by The Sun newspaper, the United Kingdom’s ammunition plants would need at least one year to produce the amount of shells currently used by the Ukrainians in their conflict with Russia.

“This is truly shocking. But it is true. And we must fix it,” General Barrons wrote. “The UK spends more on defence than any EU ally and our brave Armed Forces have long been one of Britain’s most influential levers around the world.”

“Yet for decades they have been hollowed out by spending cuts,” he added, saying that the government would need to spend an additional £3 billion per year on the military to fall in line with the top level of the NATO alliance.

The Ministry of Defence, for its part, said that while ammunition levels are “highly classified”, it was boosting spending on ammunition stockpiles to “more than pre-invasion levels” with an extra £560 million earmarked by the Treasury.

The MoD also suggested that judging Britain’s readiness by the current conflict’s standards was disingenuous.

“The war in Ukraine is an example of Soviet doctrine which uses vast quantities of artillery. We do not, nor ever have, used artillery in such methods, so to try and draw such conclusions is misleading,” they claimed.

Meanwhile, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace also said this week that the United Kingdom’s defence apparatus has been “hollowed out and underfunded” — although he neglected to mention who was responsible for this.

“There’s a recognition that as the world gets more dangerous, unstable, defence should continue to get a growing proportion of spend, we can then debate how much that proportion should be,” he said.