A three-day survival kit won’t save us… A real deterrent will

By EDWARD LUCAS

Published: 22:11 BST, 6 April 2025 | Updated: 22:11 BST, 6 April 2025

Survival kits of Swiss army knives and bottled water. That is what our defences have been reduced to, thanks to decades of cowardice and complacency.

So rattled have our security services become by the potential for Russia to cut our undersea power supply that they have urged the Government to tell households to pack a three-day survival kit.

But asking us to fumble by torch light for cans of food in the case of emergency is a woeful indictment of the impotence of our Armed Forces and their political masters in countering this threat.

Our island nation is uniquely vulnerable to attacks on the undersea pipelines, data cables and power interconnectors that link us to the rest of the world. Russian president Vladimir Putin knows this, and has been menacing our underwater infrastructure for two decades.

At the weekend it was revealed Russian sensors, suspected of attempting to spy on UK nuclear submarines, have been found in the seas around our coast. Meanwhile, fears of sabotage escalated after Russian spy ship, the Yantar, was detected mapping North Sea cables.

There’s no question that Putin has been laying the groundwork to wage war on Nato for years. But his latest actions now highlight an existential threat to the UK’s security. Imagine this scenario: Sir Keir Starmer puts British troops in Ukraine as part of a post-ceasefire security force. Russian drones or rockets attack them, causing fatalities. 

We have no choice but to strike back. But as the Prime Minister is about to give the order, warning lights flash in the National Grid’s control centre in Wokingham.

Power interconnectors with Europe are reporting faults. We switch to our gas-fired power stations – only to find the main gas pipeline to Norway has sprung a leak too. What then? With no power, chaos would spread in hours. No banking. Riots and looting. A three-day survival pack isn’t going to be much help.

Putin has been laying the groundwork to wage war on Nato for years

Asking us to fumble by torch light for cans of food in the case of emergency is a woeful indictment of the impotence of our Armed Force

The problem is that our defence chiefs have only belatedly woken up to the danger. Yes, Britain has one modern vessel, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Proteus, which is hunting Russian sabotage and surveillance attempts.

But she came into service in 2023 – a decade too late – and we need at least two such ships, not one. For years our defence chiefs have blustered and postured, claiming that our Army, Navy and Air Force are the best in the world. Faced with the all-too-real threat of Putin attacking our essential infrastructure, they have responded with denials and outright deceit. 

So what now? We need to rethink the way we run our economy and society, taking a lesson from countries such as Finland, which build resilience to attack into all aspects of life, with bomb shelters, stockpiles of essential goods and training for civilians.

Most importantly, we need to reinforce our deterrent. We can’t protect every distant cable and pipe, but we must deter such attacks in the first place by rebuilding our hollowed-out Armed Forces. Putin and his cronies should regard Britain as a daunting target, sure to mount a devastating response to any attack. Instead, they see us as weak.

Our politicians have allowed Kremlin murders, arson and political meddling on UK soil to go unpunished. Raising defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP, as Starmer has promised, is not nearly enough and – terrifiyingly – perhaps too late. We are reaping the consequences of decades of inaction and bravado. We can restock our cupboards, but the real gaps are elsewhere. 

Edward Lucas is author of The New Cold War: Putin’s Threat to Russia and the West

:
A three-day survival kit won’t save us… A real deterrent will

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk