Ukraine cannot win against Russia, warns British Field Marshal

Field Marshal Lord

Ukraine cannot win its war with Russia and should negotiate peace terms with the Kremlin, according to Britain’s most senior army officer.

Field Marshal Lord Richards said Kyiv will not be able to drive Vladimir Putin’s soldiers out of Ukraine without the help of NATO forces – who won’t get involved on the ground.

Lord Richards, who was promoted to the UK military’s most senior “five-star” rank earlier this year and led NATO forces during their troop surge in Afghanistan, told The Independent’s podcast World of Trouble, Ukraine’s allies have failed Kyiv.

In a wide-ranging interview about his military life, the field marshal revealed that although his career had been stellar, there were times when he fell foul of “the establishment” and was often out of step with his military and political masters.

Reflecting on Ukraine’s chances of success against Russia, he said: “My view is that they would not win.”

“Could not win, even with the right resources?” he was asked.

“No,” he replied.

Pressed further by The Independent, he was asked: “Even with the right resources?”

“No, they haven’t got the manpower,” the former commando said.

The field marshal’s intervention came after Zelensky flew to Washington DC to meet Donald Trump to try to persuade him to give Ukraine Tomahawk cruise missiles.

But Zelensky’s plans to pressure Trump appear to have been thwarted by Vladimir Putin, who spoke to the US president hours before his White House meeting with the Ukrainian leader.

Coming away from the summit, Zelensky said Trump had not said “no” to the idea of Tomahawks – but, for today, he did not say “yes”, either.

In his first long-form podcast interview, Lord Richards, the only British officer to have commanded massed US troops at war since 1945, said the outlook for Ukraine was not good.

“Unless we were to go in with them – which we won’t do because Ukraine is not an existential issue for us. It clearly is for the Russians, by the way,” he said on World of Trouble.

“We’ve decided because it’s not an existential issue, we will not go to war. We are, you can argue – and I absolutely accept it – in some sort of hybrid war [with Russia]. But that’s not the same as a shooting war in which our soldiers are dying in large numbers.

“Despite our attraction for all they’ve achieved and our genuine affections for so many Ukrainians, I’m just still in this school that says this is not in our vital national interests.”

Lord Richards, who led Britain’s interventions in Sierra Leone and East Timor as a brigadier and later argued against the UK’s part in the American-led invasion of Iraq, backed the former US General Mark Milley, who suggested back in November 2022 that Ukraine should negotiate with Russia.

As a major general and deputy head of the army under General Sir Mike Jackson, he said it was clear to him that Tony Blair’s government was lying about its claims that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons in Iraq.

Alongside other senior officers, he questioned the legality of the UK’s decision to join US forces in invading Iraq in 2003.

Before the British joined the invasion, Blair presented parliament with an intelligence dossier which claimed the Iraqi dictator was developing a nuclear weapon.

Derided since as the “dodgy dossier” for its unfounded claims, it caused horror at the time among senior officers who had access to the real intelligence.

“I and others encouraged the chief of defence staff to query whether this was legal and what was the basis of this intelligence,” said Lord Richards.

“I do remember one officer – who I won’t name but was on the intelligence side – saying, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find something to put.’ Yeah, ‘don't worry. We’ll find something about that. We’ll justify what we were doing’.

“I went back to say to Mike Jackson, ‘This stinks.’”

read more in our Telegram-channel https://t.me/The_International_Affairs