Russia threat: ‘britain cannot afford to wait’ as putin schemes

Sir Nick Carter said Britain “cannot afford to sit back” as Vladimir Putin strengthens his armed forces.  Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) he said the “threats” posed

by Russia needed to be addressed “now”. He said: “The threats we face are not thousands of miles away but are now on Europe's doorstep - we have seen how cyber warfare can be both waged

on the battlefield and to disrupt normal people's lives - we in the UK are not immune from that. “The time to address these threats is now - we cannot afford to sit back." He said

Russian hostilities could come "sooner than we expect" and won't simply be a case of "little green men - it will start with something we don't expect". Russia

"will do something their enemy least expects" and also try to avoid a "shooting war", preferring missiles and bombs.  And he said the conflict in Syria had been used by

Russian brsss as an opportunity to "combat test" weapons and personnel".  Also of concern was an accidental conflict sparked by the sort of false alarm seen in Hawaii last

week.  He said: "The greatest risk is the risk of miscalculation. The recent false alert in Hawaii is an indication of how easy it would be to miscalculate." Earlier today Prime

Minister Theresa May said: “Looking at the speech, the Chief of General Staff is saying that we face a range of threats and we need to make sure we have the capabilities required to address

them. "That is exactly what we are doing as part of the National Security Capability Review, and we are doing that from a position of strength where we have a £36 billion defence budget

which will rise to almost £40 billion by 2020/21. "That's the biggest defence budget in Europe, the second biggest in Nato and the fifth largest in the world."