Britain ‘Is Secretly Preparing for An Attack by Russia’
Officials asked to update 20-year-old contingency plans that would put UK on war footing after Kremlin threats
Britain is secretly preparing for a direct military attack by Russia amid fears that it is not ready for war.
Officials have been asked to update 20-year-old contingency plans that would put the country on a war footing after threats of attack by the Kremlin.
A classified dossier will set out how the Government would respond to a declaration of war, including bunkers to protect the Cabinet and the Royal family, public service broadcasts and the stockpiling of resources.
Ministers fear that Britain would not only be outgunned by Russia and its allies on the battlefield but would also be unprepared and poorly defended at home.
Kremlin officials have repeatedly threatened the UK with a direct attack over its support for Ukraine, which may soon include British troops on the ground.
Experts have warned that the country is vulnerable to an assault on its critical national infrastructure, including gas terminals, undersea cables, nuclear power plants and transport hubs.
The Telegraph understands that an update to the classified “homeland defence plan” will set out a strategy for the days immediately after a strike on the UK mainland by a hostile foreign state.
It will include scenarios in which Britain is hit by conventional missiles, nuclear warheads or cyber operations, which were a limited threat when the last significant update to the plan was made before 2005.
The war strategies for the rail and road networks, courts, postal system and phone lines are all expected to be examined. It is unlikely that the document will be released to the public for decades, if at all.
The plan, by the Cabinet Office’s Resilience Directorate, will direct the Prime Minister and Cabinet on how to run a wartime government and when they should seek shelter in the Downing Street bunker or outside London.
The Cabinet Office has already modelled a scenario in which a hostile state launched missiles and cyber attacks on national infrastructure at the same time.
A risk assessment, published in January, found that a successful attack was “likely to result in civilian fatalities as well as members of the emergency services”, cause serious economic damage and disrupt essential services.
