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Putin can aim 600mph missiles pounding Ukraine to strike BRITAIN…there’s no way of shooting them down, ex-general warns
Watch our exclusive chat with Gen. Richard Barrons on The Sun's new defence show World at War
RUSSIA could blitz Britain from 360 degrees – with the same cruise missiles hitting Ukraine – and there is no way of shooting them down, a former top general has warned.
Putin’s conventional missiles would take 90 minutes to reach London if launched over Russian soil.
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General Sir Richard Barrons said they would likely come in waves of 60 to 90 at a time if Putin gave the order.
Asked if Britain could defeat an attack, he said: “No, of course not.
“The UK does not have the air and missile defence that Ukraine has, for now. We've not needed it.”
He told The Sun’s World At War show, which you can watch on and : “The sort of missiles that fall on Kyiv could fall on London. And Kyiv’s air defences are way, way better.
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“Even a quite elderly Russian cruise missile, I'm going to cite Kh-101 released from an aircraft over western Russia, arrives in London 90 minutes later with a 500 kilogram explosive warhead and an accuracy of two meters.
“So pick your door in Downing Street.”
The Kh-101 stealth missiles have a range of up to 2,800km and could hit most of Europe excluding Spain.
They are designed to fly at “terrain hugging altitude” to avoid infra red scanners and radar, and are built of materials that absorb radar signals making them hard to detect.
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The submarine launched Kalibr cruise missiles have a range of 2,500km and have also been used to blitz Ukraine.
Gen Barrons insisted the threat was “not imminent” but warned it was technically possible.
The former chief of Joint Forces Command added: “If you were wanting to fire at the UK, you might fire from Russia, but then you've got to cross Europe.
“You're more likely to fire from the Atlantic, from the Baltic Sea, from the North Sea, or use an aircraft so the UK can be attacked as an island 360 degrees.”
Top Brass are frantically looking at ways to improve the UK’s defences.
General Barrons told The Sun: “There’s a big conversation going on in government about how you do that.
"It's quite a big problem. It's probably a £4 billion problem.
"But it's going to be part of this, of this age.”
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps told The Sun’s World At War that Britain was in talks to join Europe’s Sky Shield air defence system.
He said the MoD was in early stage talks “on what a European sky shield might look like”.
The scheme was proposed by Berlin in response to Moscow’s strikes on Ukraine.
If Britain joins it would likely mean US Patriot missiles, Israeli Arrow-3s and German IRIS-T missiles deployed on British soil.
At the moment the UK relies on the Royal Navy’s fleet of destroyers to blitz missiles out of the sky.
A Type 45 air defence vessel is regularly moored in The Thames to protect the capital during global events including as King Charles’ coronation.
The Army uses Sky Sabre missiles for medium range air defence and the RAF scramble Typhoons to intercept airborne threats.
But the UK currently has no long range land-based air defence system akin to the US Patriot or Israeli Arrow-3 system.
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Just weeks ago a high-ranking Kremlin crony warned of the power of Russian missiles.
Dmitry Kiselyov raged that any attempt by the West to "inflict a strategic defeat on Russia” would result in Armageddon.
Kiselyov - chief of Russia’s largest propaganda machine - said Mad Vlad would unleash his Satan-2 rockets along with other deadly nuclear missiles.
He even claimed the UK would be sunk underwater in an attack.
Speaking on national television, he said: "If NATO countries send their troops into Ukraine in order to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, then the very moment about which Putin once said, ‘Why do we need the world, if there is no Russia in it?’ would come.
“Then everything [all types of missile] would be launched by us, in every direction - Sarmats, Yars, and Avangards.
“American decision-making centres and launchers on land and at sea are already in their sights. France as a nuclear power will have to be disarmed instantly.
“The British Isles will simply go underwater. We have all the required technology for this….but it’s better not to let things get to that point.”
And Putin has ordered tactical nuclear weapons testing after Russia warned the West to back off or face a "worldwide catastrophe".
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The Russian tyrant told his Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to prepare military drills “in order to increase the readiness of non-strategic nuclear forces to fulfil combat missions”.
The exercises are thought to have involved land, air and sea practice and were apparently focused on the US, UK and France in particular.
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