The head of the Royal Navy, First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, has warned that the UK must take greater risks to counter a sharp rise in Russian incursions into British waters. In a speech at the Royal United Services Institute, he said Russian ship sightings had increased by a third over two years, prompting dozens of UK responses in the past year alone.
Sir Gwyn called for a shift in mindset, urging the removal of unnecessary regulations to speed up the transition from trialling new systems to deploying them at sea. He warned that technological change would only accelerate, stating that 'the pace of technological change will never again be as slow as it is today'.
The warning comes alongside criticism of the government's defence spending from former defence secretaries. Lord George Robertson, appointed to lead the Strategic Defence Review, accused the Treasury of 'vandalism' and claimed Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was unwilling to make necessary investments.
Sir Gwyn also announced the first navy-wide wargame testing a new hybrid approach, which he said demonstrated a significant increase in war-fighting capability. He noted that missile capacity tripled to levels needed to win a contest in the North Atlantic, and readiness improved across key missions.
