UK considers long-range missiles to counter Putin’s nuclear threat

Britain is considering developing long-range missiles that can take out President Putin’s nuclear weapons launched from inside Russia as fears mount in Europe that he may be prepared to use them.

The UK has signalled it will work with Germany to build a weapon with a range of about 2,000 miles, diplomatic sources disclosed.

Allies envisage the weapon being able to travel from as far as Berlin to Moscow in the event that Putin decides to launch tactical nuclear weapons.

John Healey, the defence secretary, is understood to have discussed the project with his German counterpart in Berlin on Wednesday. He was there as part of a 48-hour diplomatic tour around Europe to bolster co-operation between the UK and its allies and push his “Nato-first” defence strategy.

Under the plans, the long-range missiles would be stationed in Germany, replacing US missiles that will be deployed there in the coming years.

A diplomatic source said recent statements by Putin and others suggested Russia was reducing its threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons. “This is a worrying development,” the source said.

This month the United States and Germany announced that long-range US missiles would be deployed periodically in Germany from 2026 for the first time since the Cold War. The decision, which provoked an angry response from Moscow, was announced during the Nato summit in Washington.

In a joint statement the two nations said the Tomahawk cruise, SM-6 and hypersonic missiles had significantly longer range than existing missiles in the region. Such missiles were banned under a 1988 treaty between the US and the Soviet Union but the pact fell apart five years ago.

Boris Pistorius, the German defence minister, said the idea behind the American plan was to encourage Germany and other European countries to put their own investment into developing and procuring such missiles.

He said the temporary deployment of US weapons would give Nato allies the time to prepare. “We are talking here about an increasingly serious gap in capability in Europe,” he added.

The diplomatic source told The Times that the US weapons would act as a “bridging” gap while Europe developed its own.

France, Italy, Poland and Germany have already signed a letter of intent aimed at developing long-range missiles in Europe. However, the Germans had sought to persuade the UK to agree to develop the weapons with them and the source claimed they had agreed.

Healey signed a joint declaration with Germany on Wednesday that committed both nations to deepen defence co-operation and mentioned long-range capabilities.

It said “the ministries of defence of Germany and the United Kingdom will, together with partners, undertake a long-term, comprehensive co-operation in the field of long-range capabilities”. It referred to “deep precision strike” although it did not mention the participation of other nations or the exact capabilities.

A British defence source said that all “options were on the table” and it had not been agreed exactly what the deep strike capabilities would look like. The source also said the UK had not decided whether to enter into a bilateral partnership or a multilateral partnership.

The Ministry of Defence said it was the “most comprehensive joint defence declaration agreeing to closer co-operation as the first step in a deep new UK-German defence relationship”.

A conventional weapon can destroy a tactical nuclear weapon and/or its delivery system before it is launched provided it has accurate intelligence and targeting data and that it is not shot down on the way in.

Ben Barry, a senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that long-range missiles also had “great utility” against a wide range of conventional targets.

At present, the UK’s longest-range conventional missile is Storm Shadow, which has a disclosed range of more than 150 miles.

Earlier in the week, General Sir Roly Walker, chief of the general staff, warned that whichever way the war in Ukraine went, Russia would be seeking revenge on the countries that had helped it. “The lesson from history is the Russians don’t forget and they will come back to get their revenge,” he said.

In June, Putin said Russia had no need to use nuclear weapons to secure victory in Ukraine, which was interpreted as the Kremlin’s strongest signal to date that the war would not turn nuclear.

Yet an internal Ukrainian ministry of defence document seen by The Times and circulated a few days earlier warned that Putin’s nuclear strategy and weapons development posed a “very serious threat” and he was “increasingly willing to take risks”. It noted that Putin would use nuclear weapons if he considered it was in his interests. It also said leaked documents and other open-source information pointed to Russia’s threshold for using nuclear weapons being much lower than previously thought.

Russia’s apparent increasing reliance on tactical nuclear weapons “poses a serious problem for the US and Nato”, with the reduction in the nuclear potential of the US and Nato after the collapse of the Soviet Union creating a “gap” in the deterrence position of the West, it said.

It also claimed estimates of the present size and expansion plans of Russia’s nuclear forces were too low and Russia probably had two to four times more active nuclear warheads than the US. It referred to a US director of national intelligence assessment last year that said Moscow was increasing its dependence on nuclear weapons as it suffered losses in Ukraine.

It pointed out that by turning Russian territory into a “sanctuary”, either by not providing Ukraine with the necessary weapons or by demanding guarantees to limit their use, played into Putin’s hands.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “The UK-Germany defence declaration will kickstart a new defence relationship between our two nations, and see the UK and Germany closely co-operate on a number of areas, including industry co-operation to boost our economies. This work is in early stages and we have not yet commenced any new programmes.”