The British towns ‘woefully exposed’ to missile threat from Putin and Iran ...Middle East

British towns and cities are “woefully exposed” to the sort of missile and drone attacks unleashed by Iran on Gulf states and the UK could do little to repel a similar assault by Moscow or Tehran, senior defence figures have warned.

Kremlin officials are widely thought to be advising Tehran on its targeting decisions and watching the unfolding conflict in the Middle East closely to learn lessons for a future war with Nato.

Leaked documents show the Kremlin would plan to hit major UK defence-linked sites, such as the BAE Systems nuclear submarine manufacturing complex in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, as part of any such conflict.

But while Iran has proved itself capable of wreaking havoc on world energy markets by using its cheap Shahed drones and missiles to hit the critical infrastructure of its Gulf neighbours, there is growing alarm that the UK lacks the air defence capabilities to cope should such weaponry be deployed against the British mainland.

A former defence minister told The i Paper it was conceivable that Russia could launch a clandestine wartime attack using Iranian-designed drones and successfully hit targets such as Portsmouth, home to the administrative headquarters of the Royal Navy. 

An attempt in the early hours of Friday by Iran to strike the US-UK miiltary base on Diego Garcia, more than 2,300 miles from Tehran, using ballistic missiles has further raised alarm about the ability of an aggressor to strike Europe from afar.

Russians listed UK defence sites ‘to be targeted’

Moscow is already judged to have embarked on a so-called “grey zone” campaign to disrupt the UK and other European countries – an effort described by MI5 as an attempt by Vladimir Putin to generate “sustained mayhem” across the continent.

But a military assault by Russia on UK targets using weapons such as its own version of Iran’s Shahed drones, and tactics it has deployed against Ukraine, is also increasingly seen as a plausible eventuality.

Defence minister Al Carns, a former UK special forces commander, issued a blunt warning last month that Britain needs to be ready to fight a technologically advanced war against another state in as little as three years – and needs to move faster to head off that threat.

Late last year, Dmitry Rogozin, a Russian senator and former senior Kremlin defence official, posted a list of 23 sites – ranging from the BAE site at Barrow to Airbus facilities in Bristol and a missile factory in Belfast – which it was implied could be targeted by the Kremlin in preliminary wartime strikes.

Senior defence figures have told The i Paper that Britain faces asymmetric threats such as the use of Shahed-type drones launched from so-called shadow fleet vessels operated by Russia, Iran and their proxies against towns and cities with a major military presence in the event of a conflict.

Russia has already demonstrated a willingness to use drones to probe European defences and is widely believed to have launched surveillance drones from shadow fleet tankers in recent months at targets including a French aircraft carrier and airports in Denmark and Belgium.

Meanwhile, an apparently thwarted attempt by Iran to target the Chagos Islands, home to a key joint Anglo-American bases on Diego Garcia, has raised new questions about Tehran’s missile capabilities. Diego Garcia sits some 2,350 miles from Tehran, suggesting that if the Iranians possess a ballistic capable of travelling that distance, it would also bring much of western Europe, including Berlin, Paris and London, within range.

‘Shahed attack only a matter of time’

Tobias Ellwood, a former defence minister and chairman of the House of Commons defence select committee, said Britain was ill-prepared to deal with such scenarios, pointing to warning signs when an Iranian-built drone this month penetrated the key RAF airbase at Akrotiri in Cyprus.

He said: “We are woefully exposed. [We have] no serious air defence, as Cyprus has exposed. It’s only a matter of time before a Shahed-136 attack is launched from a shadow fleet trawler and an asset like Portsmouth is attacked.”

Defence experts said the UK is paying a price for neglecting air defence in the wake of the Cold War and failing to follow the lead of other European allies, in particular Germany, Poland and Scandinavian countries, by investing heavily in new systems such as counter-missile batteries and automated machine guns to target drones.

According to one estimate, countries on mainland Europe last year signed contracts for air defence equipment worth €8bn (£6.9bn) – a spend rate that is expected to accelerate. The UK Ministry of Defence has pledged to spend a relatively modest £1bn over the next six years on bolstering homeland air defence, although spend on other capabilities, such as drone interceptors, will boost this coverage.

While Britain has some effective missile and drone counter-measures such as the Type 45 frigates, one of which – HMS Dragon – has been scrambled to Cyprus, and the Army’s Sky Sabre anti-missile system, experts say they are currently insufficient in number to offer comprehensive air defence coverage to the UK mainland.

The result, according to experts, is that Britain would be left relying on Nato allies to shoot down incoming projectiles or the threat of the UK’s nuclear deterrent to make Moscow think twice about launching any attack.

Sash Tusa, an aerospace and defence expert at advisory firm Agency Partners, said Britain had been “unbelievably complacent” in its approach to air defence. He said: “The UK has almost no air defences of any sort and no credible plans for home defence of any sort. We have become incredibly complacent about assuming that in the event of a war with Russia, all of our allies will defend us, rather than us defending ourselves.”

Increased tempo of sabotage attempts

In the meantime, Britain is already facing a juggling act between preparing for full-scale conflict and confronting “hybrid” actions by hostile powers such as the attempt in 2024 by Russian security services to use proxies to plant explosive devices on cargo planes, including a flight to London. Intelligence services are consequently on high-alert.

A 34-year-old Iranian man was arrested on Friday along with a 31-year-old woman following an attempt to enter the Faslane naval base, home to Britain’s nuclear deterrent Vanguard submarines.

Elsewhere, Cumbria Police told The i Paper this week that it has completed a 17-month investigation into an October 2024 fire at the main assembly hall at the BAE submarine complex in Barrow, probably the most sensitive manufacturing site in the UK.

The force confirmed that it had interviewed a number of individuals in connection with the blaze, which temporarily closed the Devonshire Dock Hall where Britain’s next generation of nuclear missile-capable submarines are being built, but said “no evidence of deliberate or reckless cause” was established.

Clarity on military spending priorities was meant to have been provided late last year with the publication of the Government’s Defence Investment Plan – a blueprint for equipping the armed forces to fight a future war.

This has now been delayed amid reports of Treasury wrangling over a Ministry of Defence budget which is already thought to have a shortfall of £28bn to meet its forecast costs over the next four years.

The £3m missiles to shoot down £20,000 drones

Whitehall officials are pressing ahead with measures to bolster domestic air defence capabilities. The Ministry of Defence this week advertised a contract for unmanned drone “picket ships” capable of operating for up to 90 days at a time to monitor the UK coast for airborne threats.

Contracts have also been awarded for the acquisition and development of cheaper anti-drone systems, including the Martlet lightweight missile, which avoids the problem of using expensive platforms like the American Patriot missile defence system at a cost of about £3m per shot to eliminate a drone costing as little as £20,000.

But experts point out that even when acquisitions to bolster air defences are agreed, delivery times can take a couple of years, potentially leaving only a narrow window for training and deployment.

There is concern that ministers and military planners are failing to fully grasp the new financial and logistical demands of a world where a military middle power like Iran can strike using cheap munitions with the aim of overwhelming air defences so a proportion reach their target.

It is estimated that about 2,000 Iranian “kamikaze” drones have been fired on Gulf states since the start of the American-Israeli campaign three weeks ago, with about 6 per cent evading the state-of-the-art air defences of countries like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

A European Nato source told The i Paper: “The problem the UK faces is that the next war is going to require air defence at a previously unthinkable scale and a previously unthinkable pace of innovation. If you don’t have the quantity of weaponry to repel an attack of hundreds, if not thousands, of munitions then you face the prospect of losses to infrastructure and manufacturing capacity.”

‘Offence has become incredibly cheap and defence incredibly expensive’

Professor Clionadh Raleigh, an expert in political violence at the University of Sussex and the founder of ACLED, an organisation that monitors weapon use in conflicts, said: “We are looking at a future where the cost of offence has become incredibly cheap, and the cost of defence is incredibly expensive because you don’t know what scale you will need to engage at… Meeting that challenge is going to require a level of co-ordination and knowledge that Britain has never shown.”

The result is a growing consensus that Britain needs to acquire the sort of “layered” air defence system that Ukraine has pulled together in the face of Russia’s four-year onslaught, combining world-leading counter-drone munitions with weaponry ranging from roof-mounted machine guns to jamming devices and fighter jets.

Experts say it will be imperative for a UK facing an escalating risk of the once unthinkable – the first military attack on the British mainland since the Second World War – to spend heavily to acquire all of these capabilities to defend its skies.

As Tusa put it: “Air defence is not a terribly efficient thing – in procurement terms, it’s genuinely a game of throwing stuff against the wall and hoping some of it will stick.”

The MoD did not respond to a request to comment.

Hence then, the article about the british towns woefully exposed to missile threat from putin and iran was published today ( Sunday 22/03/2026 - 03:02 PM ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.

Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The British towns ‘woefully exposed’ to missile threat from Putin and Iran )

Also on site :

• Today's Famous Celebrity Birthdays for March 22, 2026: Reese Witherspoon, William Shatner
• Firefighters rush to Morrisons convenience store in Oswestry after report of fire
• Iranian Revolutionary Guard: 200 Killed and Wounded Among Zionist Enemy in 73rd Wave