UK chief of defence staff calls on government to spend more on military
www.bbc.com
Treasury minister Darren Jones says defence spending should rise to 2.5% of GDP, but avoids saying by when.

Russia has suffered its worst ever month for casualties since the start of the war in Ukraine, the UK chief of defence staff has told the BBC. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said Russia’s forces suffered an average of about 1,500 dead and injured “every single day” in October, bringing its losses to 700,000 since the war began in February 2022.

Russia does not disclose the number of its war dead, but Western defence officials have said October’s death toll was the heaviest so far.

[…]

While allies of US President-elect Donald Trump insist that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may have to cede territory to bring the conflict to an end, Sir Tony insisted that Western allies would be resolute for “as long as it takes”.

“That’s the message President Putin has to absorb and the reassurance for President Zelensky,” he told the programme.

  • blackn1ght@feddit.ukEnglish
    5·
    10 days ago

    1,500 dead and injured “every single day

    No idea how many of those are dead vs injured, but to put that into context, the UK lost 457 people in Afghanistan in a 20 year period, and 179 in Iraq. 255 were lost in the Falklands.

    I’d take the figures coming out of Ukraine with a pinch of salt but even if they’re half of what’s being said, these numbers are crazy. Such a crazy waste of life on all sides.