How can the UK still be so unprepared to fight a war?

On the night of 9 September, Russia fired hundreds of suicide drones and dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles against Ukraine, a regular event for the Ukrainian population.

- FRANCIS TUSA

As with many such attacks, Ukrainian air defences shot down over 75 per cent of the Russian weapons. On this occasion, around 20 drones also went into Poland. Warsaw was able to mobilise its defences, and many were shot down by fighters or ground-based SAMs. A similar attack against the UK would see the vast majority of drones/missiles getting through. The uncomfortable truth is that the UK is more or less defenceless against the sort of missile attack that is commonplace in Ukraine.

Why, more than three-and-a-half years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is the UK still not buying the equipment that is so obviously needed for the basic defence needs of the nation?

This was what many of those who attended last week’s DSEI defence exhibition were asking. The defence secretary, John Healey, in his closing speech, lauded defence cooperation between London and Kyiv. One issue he highlighted was innovative work on new families of long-range attack drones, but also of a new class of extremely low-cost drone interceptors, aiming to defeat Russian swarm attacks without having to use expensive SAMs. What was missing in the speech, or in the questions that followed, was any sign that the British armed forces were going to buy any of these weapons - drones produced in UK factories will be shipped to Ukraine.

At the same show, two years previously, the then-chief of the defence staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, had expressed a wish to see the British Army set up a “suicide drone regiment”, copying The success and rapid innovation of the Ukrainian Army. Two years later on, no such unit(s) exists. And even if there are numerous trials and tests of suicide drones and the like, nothing has been bought in any significant numbers to be of military use in the event of a large-scale war.