Vladimir Putin is preparing for war while Keir Starmer is adrift (Image: Getty)
The Ukraine war is a bloodbath, with Putin feeding Russian troops into a meat grinder. More than one million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the invasion began. Originally the offensive looked like a failed offensive, led by Russian tanks, trucks, aircraft, and massed troops. Ukraine responded with artillery, rockets and anti-tank weapons. Since then warfare has brought about a strategic revolution. Volodymyr Zelensky’s “kill-zone” strategy has halted Russian advances with a layered defense of mines, sensors, robotics, and of course drones.
Whatever the outcome, this war will be remembered for the rise of drones. Videos of doomed soldiers hunted by drones have gone viral. Once an operator locks on to you, the game is effectively over. Drones with explosive charges have an 80% chance of attacking a target in the open. They are not only more accurate than artillery, but also much cheaper. Russia was slow to understand this. Now it is not so.
During the Cold War, NATO feared waves of Soviet tanks rolling into Western Europe. That threat has changed, but our response has not. Tomorrow’s battlefield will not be dominated by armor, but by swarms of first-person view (FPV) kamikaze drones. Cheap, expensive and increasingly autonomous.
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Putin has also changed his usual brutal style. He’s hatched a sinister plan to take the threat of drones to the West, recruiting the next generation of Russian kids to command a formidable drone army.
Russia plans to train one million drone experts by 2030. Many are still in school. Others are in youth groups and technical institutes, learning to build and operate drones as part of a massive solidarity effort. It is a long-term, systemic preparation for conflict. And this comes at a time when the Russian media is threatening to turn its weapons on us.
War always accelerates technology. World War I reshaped warfare with tanks, machine guns, and aircraft. The second delivered radar, codebreaking, jet engines, and nuclear bombs. Every time, innovation decided who won and who lost.
Our army understands the danger. It knows we have to adapt. Yet, as the Iran war has shown, we are nowhere near prepared. We are struggling to field even a single fully operational destroyer, let alone keep one at sea. So what is Keir Starmer doing?
“Spineless” Starmer continues to brag about keeping us out of the Iran war, while falsely claiming he has put Britain on a “war footing”. But he is not. no way. The long-promised defense investment plan last autumn has still not emerged. That plan includes determining what ships, tanks, planes and drones we will buy over the next decade. The war moves fast. Starmer slithers like a snail.
We need serious investment of at least £28 billion to meet the scale of the threat, but the division of labor has stalled all progress.
Whitehall decision making Donetsk is stuck like a Russian tank unit in the mud. Now Starmer has added another layer of dysfunction right on top. Man cannot take any decision. Their instinct is always the same: call one committee, then another, then wait. If he’s feeling particularly dynamic, he may issue a press release. Which will not be able to stop even a single drone.
While Starmer is idle, Russia is rapidly preparing for the next war. And with every day we waste, its killer drone army grows stronger.
