The strategic defence review will send a “message to Moscow” amid daily Russian cyber attacks on the UK, the defence secretary John Healey has said.
“This is a message to Moscow as well. This is Britain standing behind, making our armed forces stronger but making our industrial base stronger, and this is part of our readiness to fight, if required,” he told the BBC’s Sunday Morning With Laura Kuenssberg programme.
He said Russia is “attacking the UK daily” in cyberspace as part of around 90,000 attacks linked to different hostile states.
His comments came as the government announced plans to spend £1.5bn on up to six new defence factories and create 1,800 jobs in the UK.
The government is spending an extra £1bn into creating a new cyber command, Healey added. “We’re in a world that is changing now, we’ve got to respond. It is a world of growing threats.”
The strategic defence review, which will be published on Monday, is expected to conclude the UK faces a “new era of threat” and will warn of the “immediate and pressing” danger posed by Russia and other countries, including China.
Asked if he expected a form of real-world attack by Russia on the UK in the coming years, Healey said: “We have to be prepared. Nato has to be prepared. We see Putin in Ukraine trying to redraw international boundaries by force… it’s part of the growing Russian aggression.”
He added that is why Nato and the UK are “stepping up our ability to deter as well as to defend in the future”.
“The world is more uncertain. The tensions are greater but we prepare for war in order to secure the peace. If you’re strong enough to defeat an enemy you deter them from attacking in the first place,” Mr Healey said.
Discussing the UK’s plans to reach 2.5 per cent of GDP spending on defence by 2027 and three per cent in the next parliament were “enough to deliver the SDR’s vision that sets out tomorrow, and that vision is a transformation of Britain’s armed forces.”
He reiterated that there was “no doubt” the government would reach three per cent in the next parliament.
Details of when six new munitions factories will be in production “will follow”, he said.
Asked when Russian leader Vladimir Putin should be frightened, he said: “The message to Putin is we take our defence seriously. We’re stepping up our deterrence.”
With additional reporting from Press Association
