The shriek of the emergency alert on every mobile phone in the country is nerve-shredding.
Across Britain, tens of millions of people stare at the message on their screens in disbelief.
‘Urgent security alert. The UK is coming under missile attack. Get to a place of shelter and remain there until you are told it is safe to leave. Do not stop to collect possessions or pets. More information to follow.’
Chaos and confusion erupt instantly. TV news stations are repeating the warning, without any explanation of what is happening.
In cities all over the country, people outdoors rush to any building that will let them in: offices, churches, even strangers’ houses. In London, many stampede into Tube stations, heading underground.
Others crowd into pubs, as the grim hashtag ‘LastOrders’ trends online. Speculation on social media is rampant, with any genuine information drowned out by fake news claiming that Britain is under nuclear attack from China, from Russia, even from the US. Phone networks are massively overloaded as 50 million people try to call loved ones, saying hysterical goodbyes.
After 18 minutes, a massive explosion over the North Sea shakes the east coast. Another follows, three minutes later. Less than 10 seconds after that, a fireball incinerates Westminster.
The Houses of Parliament, the Ministry of Defence and the entire machinery of British government are obliterated in a single explosion – not a nuclear blast but from a thermobaric warhead, equivalent to more than 40 tons of TNT, that detonates in mid-air and sends a shockwave of furnace-like heat across the city centre.
And that is just the start of the attack.
After 18 minutes, a massive explosion over the North Sea shakes the east coast. Another follows, three minutes later. Less than 10 seconds after that, a fireball incinerates Westminster
It will be days before the basic facts are confirmed. An onslaught of rockets was unleashed from Russia, with an opening salvo of three hypersonic Oreshnik missiles launched from the Kapustin Yar testing range in the Astrakhan region, on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
Two of these missiles, travelling at 11 times the speed of sound, were shot down by London’s sole defender, a Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer moored in the Thames. The third evaded the ship’s Sea Viper anti-air guided weapon system, and hit its target with devastating effect.
This is the nightmare scenario. You might regard it as scaremongering. But with Ukraine and Russia about to see an enforced ceasefire imposed by President Donald Trump as he returns to the White House next month – a ceasefire that favours only the Kremlin – Britain and Western Europe have never been more at risk of an attack from Russia.
We have to prepare, if we are not to suffer a swift and catastrophic defeat… and a war lost before it is barely begun.
I have imagined the all-too-plausible destruction of Westminster because it is imperative that our politicians listen to me. Eight years ago, when I issued a similar warning, those politicians ridiculed me.
Sir Richard Shirreff is former Nato Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe
My book, War With Russia, forecast that Vladimir Putin would order the invasion of Ukraine. That prediction was met with mocking incredulity. Philip Hammond, then the Foreign Secretary, was asked to comment on it by John Humphrys on Radio 4’s Today programme. ‘I don’t know anyone who thinks like that,’ he scoffed. But in February 2022, my prediction proved horribly accurate.
Ukraine, with dogged support from Britain and belated backing by the US, has defended itself with extraordinary tenacity. All Europe should be deeply grateful to that sovereign nation, for buying us time – but it is time we have squandered, by failing to ramp up our own defences.
If Nato had responded with the same courage and commitment as the Ukrainians, Russia would now be a neutered threat. Putin’s gangster state could have been overthrown and the largest country on Earth might now be taking tentative steps towards democracy.
Instead, Russia is a wounded bear. Its economy is wholly reliant on war: without arms production and mass conscription, it would collapse. And even as it has ground down Ukraine’s defenders in endless ‘meatwave’ attacks, sacrificing thousands of troops daily, it has suffered a serious setback with the loss of its naval base in Syria now Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown.
The Kremlin has everything to gain from a ceasefire. It will be able to replenish its arsenals, reorganise its army leadership, rebuild its alliances with other pariah states such as North Korea and Belarus, and prepare to revive its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Be under no illusion. Putin will not abandon his goal of rebuilding a Russian empire within the borders of the old USSR. He cannot conceive of Ukraine as an independent nation, not least because he regards it as Russia’s natural buffer zone against Europe.
Do not expect Trump’s ceasefire to bring lasting peace either. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, knows his country will die the moment it stops fighting for survival. The terms imposed by Washington in January will be heavily advantageous to Putin, meaning Ukrainians will also regard the peace treaty to be a temporary measure.
Kyiv’s goal will be to re-arm faster and better than Russia. I fear this means they will redouble their efforts to build a nuclear device. This will be an atomic weapon, like the one that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945, and not a hydrogen bomb, but it will bring a credible doomsday threat – and it will play directly into Putin’s hands.
Russia will launch an all-out attack on Ukraine, possibly using tactical nuclear weapons, and justify this as necessary to prevent Ukraine from triggering an international atomic holocaust.
Once Putin has dominance over the ruins of Ukraine, he will look north-west, to the Baltic. With his Syrian ports gone, it is a matter of urgency for Russia’s navy to secure a base that is not ice-bound throughout winter, as is the Arctic port of Murmansk.
But the trio of former USSR states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – are all Nato members. And the moment Putin crosses that border, he is effectively declaring war on all of Europe and the US.
To conventional thinking, this would be suicide. Since 1949, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was founded, the West’s all-for-one philosophy has made us effectively unassailable. But it has also made us deeply complacent, and reliant on American largesse.
Trump has been making it clear for months that he will withdraw much of the US financial support for Nato. He means it. America will no longer be the world’s guardian. If Europe is to survive, we must do it alone.
But the bleak reality is that, when the US pulls out, Nato will probably collapse. France is in political chaos, Germany is paralysed, and other smaller countries such as Hungary and Slovakia are following America’s nationalist, isolationist lead. Even with a supreme unified effort from all allies, it would take a decade or longer to replace American capabilities underpinning the alliance.
When Russia invades one of the Baltic countries, it’s unlikely to be met with a united European response. Putin will calculate that Nato is a busted flush, and he will gamble.
My profound hope is that allies such as Sweden, Finland and Poland will stand up to the Russian bully tactics. The one country that is guaranteed to resist, I believe, is Britain.
But we are in no fit state to fight. Labour’s minister for veterans’ affairs, Alistair Carns – a former Royal Marines colonel, who is also a reservist – said last week that the British Army could be wiped out in as little as six months. The bitter truth is he was wildly optimistic.
Our military is so truncated, underfunded, undermanned and undersupplied that it could be overwhelmed by a concerted Russian assault within days. This is no reflection on the training or the discipline of our soldiers. Their fighting skills are the best in the world. But they haven’t a hope against the colossal number of troops Russia is able to field.
Putin’s gangster state could have been overthrown and the largest country on Earth might now be taking tentative steps towards democracy
The British lead the Enhanced Forward Presence Battle group in Estonia, essentially a tripwire force deployed to respond to an invasion. It has just over 1,000 soldiers, of which maybe 900 are British, with the rest from other nations.
We’ve seen in Ukraine that Russia is able to absorb 1,500 casualties or more every day. It’s unimaginable that the UK could withstand an assault on such a scale. In this scenario, the battle group is cut to pieces, and our attempt to reinforce the line by sea will meet with an even greater disaster.
Russia’s autonomous drones and submarines will sink several British ships in the Baltic. Chief among these is likely to be the Prince of Wales aircraft carrier, which lacks the necessary escorts to protect it.
We are utterly unprepared for modern drone warfare, which has evolved beyond imagination in the past three years. The most chilling use I can picture for them is also the simplest.
Around RAF bases in Britain, weeks before the Russian attack, small drones begin buzzing. Available online for £100 or less, they can be piloted by anyone with half an hour’s practice… such as Russian sleeper agents in the UK.
These drones can map the living quarters of RAF and US Air Force pilots. They might be spotted, they might be quickly jammed by electronic defences on the bases, but they are merely reconnaissance devices.
Only this week, we learned that drone incursions were reported at three US airbases – RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, and RAF Feltwell in Norfolk – between November 20 and 22. These sightings coincided with reports of drones flying over ‘water reservoirs, electric transmission lines, rail stations, police departments, and military installations’ in the US state of New Jersey.
Within a few minutes of the Oreshnik strike on London, a barrage of missiles with a shorter range will follow, fired from the Baltic states or Kaliningrad on the Polish border. These weapons, such as the Geran-2 rocket drone, are fired in clusters and travel much more slowly than the hypersonics, at about 115mph.
The Type 45 destroyer will be able to zap these out of the sky – but only as long as its ammunition lasts. The ship will also be vulnerable to aerial attack by Russian fighter bombers armed with supersonic missiles such as the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal or ‘Dagger’.
These have a range of more than 300 miles, and can reach speeds of 7,000mph. Even if the destroyer is not sunk, it will have to return to port to re-arm, leaving Britain effectively defenceless.
Many people assume we must have an ‘iron dome’ defence system, similar to Israel’s. We do not.
Once the Russian drones start getting through, they will pick their targets with ruthless effectiveness. Any pilots and air crew not on duty could be killed in their quarters, for example, along with their families – their precise locations relayed to the enemy by those innocuous recon drones.
The same is true for all sorts of people in crucial roles: not only military officers but GCHQ staff, politicians, business leaders, senior police, doctors and anyone else whose job makes them essential to the smooth running of the country. They can be targeted and killed where they live or work.
Unthinkable? We have already seen something similar happen, with the complete decapitation of Hezbollah’s leadership and middle-ranking officers in Lebanon, by Israeli security forces who turned their pagers into bombs.
The drones will also pulverise UK cities, destroying ports, communications, the National Grid and all the other unprotected infrastructure. Meanwhile, repeated cyber attacks will cripple critical utilities such as electricity and water, banks and all communications.
We will not be able to call on our allies. If they are not already under attack, they will be fully occupied in trying to shore up their defences.
Without electricity, fuel, mobile phones or political leadership, with food supplies already running low and with no way of fighting back as successive relays of missiles hammer home, how long will Britain last?
I give it a week.
Moscow’s terms will be simple. In return for peace, our Army will be reduced to a couple of ceremonial regiments, our Air Force will be the Red Arrows, and a puppet government will be installed. There will be no need for an occupying army, but Britain will serve as Putin’s Atlantic naval base. Portsmouth is the most likely candidate to become a Russian outpost.
Can we prevent this? Only by a supreme effort of government and an acceptance of sacrifice on the part of the British people. We need to be investing five – or even ten – per cent of our GDP in our Armed Forces, and in industry – churning out munitions, tanks, aircraft and so much more vital equipment.
We can’t build up our forces with volunteers. We have no option but to introduce conscription if we are to have a chance of survival, just as we did in the months before the Second World War in 1939.
Defence must be our only priority, taking precedence over everything: over the NHS, the welfare system, education, every aspect of the British way of life.
Because without defence, there won’t be any such thing as a British way of life.
Sir Richard Shirreff is former Nato Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe
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