The state of the UK’s armed forces, hollowed out by decades of cuts, is “much worse than we thought”, Defence Secretary John Healey has revealed.

The comments came as Ukraine‘s former military chief warned that Britain and other democracies need to “wake up” and consider how to protect themselves from another world war – a level of readiness that would require all of society, not just the military, to be prepared.

General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who took up a new position as Ukrainian ambassador to London this month, told a conference in London: “Evil is here and it has come to kill.”

Both men were speaking separately at the British Army‘s annual Land Warfare Conference, hosted by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) thinktank.

Mr Healey touched on a sweeping review of defence that the government launched last week, pledging to establish a “new era” for the armed forces.

Noting that “these are really serious times” with “rapidly increasingly global threats”, the defence secretary said he wanted to avoid age-old tactics by the army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force of squabbling among each other over limited funds to back pet projects.

“We must be fit to fight not fight amongst ourselves,” Mr Healey said.

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“I really want to see the old rivalries left behind.”

He continued: “We know all three services face very serious challenges: hollowed out forces, procurement waste, low morale, recruitment and retention crisis and veterans who can’t access the services they deserve.”

Mr Healey then revealed, after two weeks of being in government, “we now also see that these problems are much worse than we thought”.

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General Zaluzhnyi, who was removed from his post as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February, had his own warning for the UK and other Western allies about the potential of future global conflict.

WWIII warning

He recalled how more than 60 million people had died in the first and second world wars.

“Is humanity ready to calmly accept the next war in terms of scale and suffering – this time the third world war?” he said in his first public speech since moving to the UK.

General Zaluzhnyi said Ukrainians should “honestly” share their experiences of 10 years of war with Russia, from an initial invasion of Crimea in 2014 to the full-scale conflict in 2022.

“We must honestly tell humanity what exactly is happening and what humanity should be ready for,” he said, speaking through a translator.

“Free and democratic nations and their governments need to wake up and think about how to protect their citizens and their countries.”

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He said that war should be avoided but if it comes a society should be ready – a stance that requires the whole of a nation, not just the armed forces.

“Perhaps the most difficult and the most important component is the societal readiness, which is based on honest and transparent communication with the government and people,” General Zaluzhnyi said.

“Society must agree to temporarily give up a number of freedoms for the sake of survival. Modern wars unfortunately are total [wars].”

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