Britain to update defense plan to reflect threats from Russia

The United Kingdom will update 20-year-old plans for emergency actions that would put the country on a war footing.

The Telegraph has learned about these plans.

The secret document will contain an action plan for how the government will respond to the outbreak of war, including the evacuation of the Cabinet of Ministers and the royal family to bunkers, public broadcasting, and resource accumulation.

The updated secret “homeland defense plan” will define the strategy for the first days after an attack on British territory by a hostile foreign state.

It will include scenarios in which the UK is attacked by conventional missiles, nuclear warheads, or cyberattacks, which were previously considered a limited threat, as the last significant update to the plan was made before 2005.

The plan, which will be developed by the Cabinet Office for Resilience, will also provide guidance to the prime minister and cabinet on how to run the government in wartime and when they should seek refuge in a Downing Street bunker or outside London.

British officials are particularly concerned about gas terminals and the five operating nuclear power plants, where radioactive material could leak across the country and cause “significant long-term safety, health, environmental, and economic consequences.”

Experts also emphasize that Britain has vulnerabilities, including gas terminals, undersea internet cables, nuclear power plants, and important transportation hubs. The Cabinet of Ministers has already worked out a scenario in which an enemy state simultaneously launches missile strikes and conducts cyberattacks against this infrastructure.

The updated plan will consider military strategies for rail and road networks, ships, the postal system, and telephone lines.

Innovations in the plan

The new contingency plan will for the first time address cyber warfare, which is now one of the most dangerous threats facing the UK, according to intelligence officials.

For example, last October, Ken McCallum, director of MI5, the British counterintelligence agency, reported that the number of state threats investigated by the agency had increased by 48% over the year and that Russia had intensified its cyberattacks because of the war in Ukraine.

It was recentreported that about 300 military personnel leave the UK Armed Forces every month.