Putin thinks we’re weak, says ex-defence chief

Air Chief Marshal Lord Stirrup, a former chief of the defence staff, said the Russian president was “testing” the resolve of Britain and its Nato allies in the stand-off in Ukraine and with increasingly aggressive flights by Russian bombers off the UK.

He joined former defence secretary Liam Fox in suggesting that Britain should now consider supplying arms to the Ukraine government to counter the superior firepower of separatist rebels being supplied by Moscow.

“Nato over the years, in the eyes of Putin at least, has become weak. Putin views the West as weak all round and that is a very, very dangerous position for us to be in,” he told Sky News’s Murnaghan programme yesterday.

“My concern is that Nato is not spending enough resource on defence. If Nato is weak or is perceived to be weak by Putin then the risk of miscalculation is much greater and our security is much lowered as a result.”

Lord Stirrup, who was head of the armed forces at the time of the 2010 strategic defence and security review, said the “swingeing cuts” to defence spending had left the forces “right on the limit” and needed to be reversed.

“The 2010 defence review was predicated on defence expenditure increasing in real terms every year after 2015. The Prime Minister acknowledged that when he announced the outcome of the review in the House of Commons,” he said.

“We now have to make sure that those undertakings are kept. It was important in 2010. It is much more important now.”

He said that recent flights by Russian long-range Bear bombers off Bournemouth and the coast of Cornwall were part of a strategy to probe UK defences.

“They are becoming more aggressive. These aircraft - Russian Bears for example - are not going on these very flights simply as joy rides. They are mission rehearsals,” he said.

“These aircraft launch stand-off missiles against Western targets and just as they used to do in the Cold War they are practising those profiles.

“They are testing us, they are testing our defences, they are testing our reactions and they are engaging to a degree in a game of chicken and that’s very dangerous.”