LONDON: The outgoing head of the Royal Air Force (RAF) has warned that Russia will be “vindictive” if beaten in Ukraine and poses a direct high threat to the United Kingdom.
According to The Telegraph, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), said that Russia’s air force, surface navy and submarine force threaten the UK and NATO and that this is something “we should focus our minds on”. He said the threat would endure or worsen if President Putin is ousted.
The RAF provided intelligence and material support to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Addressing the conflict, Mike said: “When the Ukraine conflict is over, and Ukraine has restored its borders, as it must, we would have a damaged, vindictive, and brutal Russia, whose means of harming us is through air attack, missile attack and subsurface attack.”
After four years at the top of the RAF, Sir Mike is set to step down next month.
He has led the air force during a time in which the force has been engulfed in the diversity scandal after the head of the recruiting and selection branch resigned over claims she was under pressure to pause hiring white men to meet targets.
In his final interview as Air Chief Marshal, Mike acknowledged for the first time that improving diversity was put into personal targets.
He addressed the future of artificial intelligence (AI) in the army and said humans must always decide on lethal force.
His comments on the high threat of Russia after the end of the war in Ukraine are the first public acknowledgement by the Western army leader of concerns understood to have been discussed in private over how humiliated Russia might act if defeated in Ukraine.
United States General Christopher Cavoli, the head of his country’s European Command, said that despite significant losses to the military due to the war in Ukraine, the Russian forces were still largely intact and remained a significant threat.
Gen Cavoli, during a security conference in Tallinn, said, “It’s straightforward to look and to think the Russian army has collapsed or is in dire trouble, but in fact, it’s been uneven.”
“The ground armed forces are significantly eroded. They’ve run into big issues [but] the navy has lost almost nothing, cyber has lost nothing, space lost nothing.
“How long will it take to rebuild? The question is, how long will it take to rebuild to do what? They are capable of doing things today.”
