British Defense Minister Ben Wallace strongly condemned the “draining of material resources” from the British armed forces, saying that London is no longer able to send even a 10,000-strong division to war, The Times reports.

“For decades, we could not form a division to wage war. Constant emptying of matter [a forțelor armate] what happened under the Labor governments and the first Conservative governments left the Ministry of Defense with gaps and gaps in terms of capability,” Wallace told The Times on Sunday.

A division of the British armed forces is supposed to have an average of 10,000 soldiers, but the UK Defense Journal, the official magazine of the armed forces in London, revealed in 2021 that the United Kingdom army had 18,000 infantry, the number of troops that Ukraine lost in just the first 4 months the fight against the invasion that Vladimir Putin launched last year.

The comments by Ben Wallace for The Times come as the Conservative government in London prepares to debate the 2023 budget after Britain’s defense secretary announced last September that London’s military spending would rise by a further £52 billion by 2030 in response to Russian aggression. .

“My department has been so accustomed for 30 to 40 years of defending against cuts or reconciling cuts with today’s struggles that it’s going to have to get used to a whole different culture of we’re going to grow, we’re going to change,” Wallace said last fall.

Britain began rearmament even before the war in Ukraine

Britain is NATO’s second-biggest military spender after the US, but France and Germany also announced defense budget increases following Russia’s February 24 invasion.

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced back in November 2020 that his government was preparing the largest defense budget since the fall of the “Iron Curtain”, saying that the international situation was “more dangerous” and “more intense competition” than ever -When. after the cold war.

Three years ago, the increase represented a roughly 10% increase in the UK’s defense spending, from around £40 billion to almost €45 billion.

Wallace’s new comments on Sunday also come after a series of scandals in recent years over Britain’s military purchases, which have led some analysts to question whether London could muster the unit in the event of war in Europe.

General Sir Patrick Sanders, chief of the General Staff in London, said last week that the Rishi Sunak government’s decision to donate a company of 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine jeopardized Britain’s commitment to NATO.

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