The British army could be wiped out in just six months of war.

The warning was made by senior British Ministry of Defense official Alistair Carns on December 4 in a speech at a conference on military reserves at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London. According to Mr. Carns, a former Marine colonel, a similar level of casualties to the conflict in Ukraine would destroy the British military within 6-12 months, Sky News reported.

“In a war of the scale of Ukraine, not a limited intervention, our troops, as part of a broader multinational coalition, would be wiped out at the current casualty rate in six months to a year,” the official said. Mr. Carns estimated that Russia was losing about 1,500 soldiers a day.

PHOTO: UK MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

The Ministry of Defence's chief of staff and veterans affairs stressed that he did not mean that Britain needed a bigger army, but "it needed to create depth and expand rapidly in the event of a crisis".

As of October 1, the British Army had 109,245 personnel, including 25,814 volunteer reservists. "The reserves are vital, they are at the heart of that. Without them, we can't project power, we can't meet a multitude of defence missions," said Carns. The official also said that Britain needed to catch up with its NATO allies in focusing more on its reserves.

Commenting on the statement, a spokesman for the British Prime Minister's Office said that Defense Secretary John Healey had spoken about the state of the armed forces inherited from the previous administration, according to The Guardian.

"That's why the budget invests billions of pounds in defence, and why we are undertaking a strategic defence review to ensure we have the capability and investment we need to defend our country," the spokesman said.

Before the July election, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, then leader of the opposition Labour Party, accused the ruling Conservatives of shrinking the army to its smallest size “since Napoleon”.