BRITAIN will be in a new hot or cold war within seven years and needs to spend to prepare, Ben Wallace chillingly predicted last night.
A year on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Defence Secretary warned the world is “definitely more dangerous, more unstable and more insecure”.
Ben Wallace was warmly greeted as he visited Ukrainian soldiers training in Britain
Wallace insists Britain must still ‘be ready for whatever could happen’ next
“Conflict is coming by the end of this decade,” he told Trending In The News, “whether it is a cold war or hot, war is coming.”
“We just have to recognise that in order to deter you just have to be ready, you have to be equipped and you have to stand with your friends and your allies.”
On the eve of Friday’s anniversary of the start of Putin’s barbaric incursion, Wallace is fighting his own battle back home to secure a multi-billion defence spending uplift at March’s Budget.
“The world is more dangerous, more anxious and more insecure… we need a greater proportion of the public spend on defence,” he said.
While billions in kit and ammunition has been handed to Ukraine, Wallace insists Britain must still “be ready for whatever could happen” next.
“The Chancellor said last year ‘the PM and I recognise that defence will need more money’”.
In a stark challenge to Jeremy Hunt ahead of his Budget next month – and their boss Rishi Sunak who some Tory MPs fear is penny pinching when it comes to defence – Wallace added: “Freedom isn’t free.”
But no greater was the cost of freedom shown then on the faces of dozens of Ukrainian soldiers the Defence Secretary was visiting in the West Country yesterday.
Standing in front of a trainer Challenger, Wallace was warmly greeted like a minor celebrity by the otherwise hard as nails looking warriors.
Britain’s leading role in training and arming Ukraine ahead of last year’s invasion – and then the early provision of missiles, armoured cars and 14 Challenger 2 tanks since – has cemented the UK’s reputation as Ukraine’s most reliable ally.
Their only gripe is the price of cigarettes in Britain – with the Ukrainian translator also in shock at one officer’s complaint of “ten pounds a packet!”
“Five days before the invasion last year, I went to Moscow to see my Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu”, Wallace told the troops.
“He said they would not invade and Ukraine would not fight. Well he lied on the first, and you proved him wrong on the second.”
“We are not in for a period, we are in it until you defeat Russia and Ukrainians can go home. “Britain’s message to Russia is we are not giving up and we are not going away.”
20,000 Ukrainian troops will be trained in the UK this year, with many hundred currently at four locations across the UK.
The oldest so far was 71 years old, and the youngest 18.
Dentists, lecturers, engineers and students have signed up as well as professional soldiers who have already fought in the Donbas and Crimea.
Wallace is fighting his own battle back home to secure a multi-billion defence spending uplift at March’s Budget
Ukrainian soldiers are determined to drive Putin from Crimea, which he annexed in 2014
Most of those receiving training on Challengers looked far older than their twenties and thirties – battle hardened by the conflict with Russia now nine long years in.
Atop of a Challenger, posing for photographs, Wallace points and cries: “Crimea that way”, as the Ukrainians warn they will not stop pushing back Russia to the pre 2021 invasion borders.
They are determined to drive Putin from the province he annexed in 2014 before contemplating any peace deal.
“Capture me a T90” as jokes as he waves off the soldiers, many who will be returning to the front in just three weeks’ time. Some who will not survive Russia’s much vaunted spring offensive.
As he tries to leave in his ministerial Land Rover, a female soldier no more than 25 jumps in front of the car waving.
Agitated Met bodyguards are rebuffed as Wallace winds down the window to accept a Ukrainian Army badge which he fixes on his jacket.
Away from the cameras and off the cuff, Wallace tells the emotional young woman: “We know what it’s like to be on our own, outnumbered. In 1939 it was just us. No America, it was just Britain. And everyone said the Nazis had it all, so we know know what it is like and that is why you will win and we will stick by you.”
‘It should be me laying in front of the Land Rover, not the other way round”, he says later. “I feel like an imposter. They are the ones doing the fighting. They are the ones fighting for their freedom and our freedom.”
“You meet these people who are going back to a real war that has cost their friends and families their lives, but has inspired a world who wants to stand up against the Russian threat.
“You can’t help be inspired and it continues to prove we are doing the right thing.
“What’s amazing about this conflict is it doesnt where you are in British politics, be it SNP, Labour, Liberal, Conservative, people see the inherent injustice of what has gone in Ukraine, the war crimes, the illegal invasion and young and old people feel that want to do something about it.”
