Fears grow over just how small UK Army – one of Putin’s teams bigger | UK | News
The British Army has shrunk (Image: Getty)
One part of Russia’s army is bigger than Britain’s entire soldiery as fears grow over just how small it is. The Kremlin’s Unmanned Systems Forces – a branch dedicated to drone warfare – has 87,000 personnel. Whereas the entire British Army only has just above 70,000 soldiers.
Moscow also has 1,000 troops in its elite Rubicon drone force, as well as hundreds more in its Bars-Sarmat Unmanned Systems Special Purpose Centre. This means the total number of individuals specialising in remote warfare is nearer 90,000. But only 3,000 British soldiers have been trained to fly drones, with some resorting to using handouts to buy one in order to learn to fly them, it has been reported.
Armed Forces minister and former commando Al Carns emphasised that drones are causing more fatalities than direct contact with the enemy, calling it the reality of modern warfare. The British Army is at its smallest size since the Napoleonic Wars, dropping from nearly 110,000 in 2010.
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One section of Putin’s forces is bigger than the UK’s entire army (Image: Getty)
The UK’s stretegic defence review published last year states that defence is “still largely shaped by the operations of the post-Cold War era, primarily conducted against non-state opponents”.
It added: “The size and readiness of the Armed Forces declined as the threat posed by the Soviet Union receded. The Cold War’s large standing force of over 311,000 Regular personnel has fallen to just over 136,000, with only a small set of forces ready to deploy at any given moment and the rest held at varying levels of readiness.
“Defence spending reduced in parallel, from 4.1% of GDP in 1989 to 2.3% today.”
The current situation is “genuinely worrying”, a defence source told The Sun.
The Institution for the Study of War (ISW) reported that an officer of a Ukrainian brigade operating in the Pokrovsk direction said on February 6 that Russian forces have “saturated the frontline with Mavic drones on the line of contact, Supercam, Zala, and Orlan reconnaissance drones in the operational rear, and Molniya drones for logistics purposes in the Pokrovsk direction”.
Experts added that Russian forces conducted a series of drone and missile strikes against Ukraine on the night of February 5 to 6.
“The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched two Kinzhal ballistic missiles, five Kh-59/69 guided missiles, and 328 Shahed-type, Gerbera-type, Italmas-type, and other drones – of which about 200 were Shaheds – from the directions of Oryol and Kursk cities; Millerovo, Rostov Oblast; Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Krai; and occupied Donetsk City,” the ISW said.
“The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Ukrainian forces downed 297 drones, that none of the missiles reached their targets, that 22 drones struck 14 locations, and that drone fragments fell in two locations.”
Ukrainian officials said Russian forces hit homes, power grids, an electrical substation and energy infrastructure in Kharkiv and Zaporizhia oblasts.
The Ministry of Defence said: “We are spending £4billion on boosting our drone capabilities. The Army has already trained 3,000 drone pilots, with another 6,000 to be trained next year.”
