UK army would be destroyed in ‘six months to a year’ in war, says minister

Alistair Carns, the minister for veterans' affairs, told a conference in London that the current size of the British Army meant its forces would be out of action within 12 months if there was a conflict on a similar scale to the war in Ukraine. He said around 1,500 Russian soldiers were killed or injured each day in that conflict. "In a war of scale — not a limited intervention, but one similar to Ukraine — our army for example on the current casualty rates would be expended — as part of a broader multinational coalition — in six months to a year," Carns told the Royal United Services Institute think tank.