A top military official has declared the British Army would be ready to fight Vladimir Putin‘s forces ‘tonight’ if Russia were to invade another European nation in addition to Ukraine.

Lt. Gen Sir Rob Magowan, the deputy chief of the British defence staff, told the House of Commons defence committee yesterday afternoon: ‘If the British Army was asked to fight tonight, it would fight tonight.

‘I don’t think anybody in this room should be under any illusion that if the Russians invaded Eastern Europe tonight, then we would meet them in that fight.’ 

His bold statement followed hours after Russia’s ambassador to the UK warned that Ukraine’s use of Storm Shadow missiles on Russian territory means Britain ‘is now directly involved in this war’.

‘This firing cannot happen without NATO staff, British staff as well,’ Andrei Kelin told Sky News this afternoon – a day after British-made rockets battered a military base in Russia’s Kursk region. 

However, Magowan’s declaration belies the state of the UK’s military capabilities.

In May, he acknowledged that Britain’s soldiers would run out of ammunition and equipment in a war against Putin’s Russia in less than two months.  

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Meanwhile, Defence Secretary John Healey is currently embarking on a military cost-cutting mission, having announced the decommissioning of two former Royal Navy flagships, a frigate and a pair of support tankers earlier this week. 

Healey, who was appointed Defence Secretary by Sir Keir Starmer following Labour’s election victory in July, said he was dealing with a ‘dire inheritance from the Tories, the state of the forces often hidden to Parliament, billion-pound black holes in defence plans, taxpayers’ funds being wasted and military morale down to record lows’.

The Government is carrying out a strategic defence review, which will set out the path to spending 2.5% of gross domestic product on defence – although no timetable has yet been set out for that spending commitment.