The UK’s air defences were breached by Russian missiles in a grim war game, it was revealed today.
A simulation run in the wake of Vladimir Putin‘s full-scale invasion of Ukraine showed Britain could not prevent all strikes getting through.
The scenario from 2022 was revealed by Air Commodore Blythe Crawford, head of the RAF Air and Space Warfare Centre until last week.
In a talk at the Royal United Services Institute, he said before the exercise there had been an assumption that the UK homeland was safe.
‘We have stood for years at the western edge of Europe feeling as though the rest of the continent stood between us and the enemy,’ he said, according to The Times.
‘We in the UK over the last few decades have become focused on being garrison safe and making assumptions that we are safe to operate from the home base because most of the wars we’ve been fighting have been overseas.
The aftermath of a Russian missile strike on Kyiv this week
A simulation run in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s (pictured) full-scale invasion of Ukraine showed Britain could not prevent all strikes getting through
The scenario from 2022 was revealed by Air Commodore Blythe Crawford, head of the RAF Air and Space Warfare Centre until last week (pictured in 2020)
‘We need to reverse that thinking and assume that, from here on, we’re under threat in the home base now as well.’
The simulation – part of the RAF’s £36million Gladiator programme – looked at how ‘day one’ of the conflict would unfold.
The UK faced ‘hundreds of different types of munitions’ attacking from various directions.
Air Commodore Crawford said the outcome was ‘not a pretty picture’, with some missiles making it through.
He stressed that significant work had been done since then to bolster the defences.
‘We [loaded] night one of Ukraine into that synthetic environment and played it out against the UK and, as you can imagine, it was not a pretty picture,’ he said.
‘It reinforced the fact that we really need to get after this.’
It is thought the military has toughened some aircraft shelters and practised landing Typhoon aircraft on ice in Finland.
An agreement signed with Germany in October included provisions to work on air and missile defence. There is a ‘layered’ approach from the RAF, Navy and Army working with Nato allies.
An MOD spokesman said: ‘The UK stands fully prepared to defend itself against any threat alongside our NATO allies.
‘Our military is equipped with a range of advanced capabilities to provide a layered approach to air and missile defence.
‘This includes the world-class Sea Viper missile system which has successfully shot down a Houthi rebel ballistic missile and attack drones in the Red Sea.’
Some of the wreckage from deadly Russian missile strikes on Kyiv yesterday
