 Britain is engaged in a grey war with Russia, former UK spy chief. Britain is engaged in a grey war with Russia. But neither the authorities nor the public are taking the situation seriously enough. The former head of the famed spy agency MI6, Richard D'Alev, has warned. The UK military isn't getting enough money to be able to counter the threats posed by Moscow and Beijing Richard D'Alev, who led the British secret intelligence service between 1999 and 2004, said in an interview with Politico. The statement followed last week's announcement of the UK's budget for the next financial year in which there was no increase in defence spending. It remains at 2% of the country's GDP. If you stopped anyone in the street here in the UK and asked them whether they thought Britain is at war, they'd look at you as if you were mad. But we are at war, we're engaged in a grey war with Russia and I am trying to remind people of that, the former spy chief said. The British authorities have got to make some tough choices and I'm afraid the tough choices are not in front of us right now. We should be spending at least 2.5% on defence, he insisted. We urgently need to be building more ships, we need a much bigger navy and we need more boots on the ground for God's sake. D'Alev stressed. The fighting between Russia and Ukraine has shown the importance of manpower on the modern battlefield, the 79-year-old said. The size of the British army had been reduced by more than 26,000 since 2006 and currently has just over 74,000 full-time troops. Last month, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov accused the UK of being directly involved in the conflict between Moscow and Ukraine. Polish troops would never leave Ukraine. Russia is technically prepared for nuclear war. Putin, any attempt to send Polish troops into Ukraine could end in a long-term occupation. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned in an extensive interview with Russia One TV broadcaster and Ria Novosti. If Polish troops enter the territory of Ukraine in order to, as they say, secure the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, for example, or in some other places to free up Ukrainian rear military units to participate in hostilities on the front line, then I think that Polish troops will never leave, Putin said, according to excerpts from the interview. The deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine amid the conflict with Russia is not unthinkable. Polish Foreign Minister Radislav Sikorsky claimed last week. He was commenting on a statement by French President Emmanuel Macron, who said late last month that he cannot exclude the possibility of soldiers from the US-led military bloc being sent to aid Kiev. Putin believes that Polish officials' dream of returning, those lands that they consider historically their own and which were taken from them by Joseph Stalin and transferred to Ukraine, they certainly want them back. So if official Polish units enter there, they are unlikely to leave, he claimed. Putin said that Russia is technically prepared for nuclear war, and if the US sends troops to Ukraine, it will be seen as a significant escalation of the war. From a military technical point of view, we are ready, of course, said the 71-year-old Putin in response to a question about whether the country is truly prepared for nuclear war. Putin said that the US understands that if they deploy troops to Ukrainian territory, Russia will consider this a step toward intervention. In the US, there are enough experts in Russian-American relations and in the field of strategic deterrence. So, I don't think everything is rushing headlong here, but we are ready for this, Putin said. 300,000 NATO troops are ready to enter Poland to fight Russia. NATO is ready at a high level to send 300,000 soldiers to Poland. This was said by the Deputy Chief of the Polish General Staff, Karol Dajmanowski. American soldiers have been stationed in Poland for a long time, several thousand of them. They train with us regularly. Remember that the United States and other allies also support us in other areas, in the air, at sea, in space, and in cybersecurity, he said. Asked whether it is possible that the number of American troops in Poland will increase to 100,000, he said that this is a realistic scenario. This is an assumption of NATO's latest plans which were approved at the political level at the last summit in Vilnius. Until now, there were 40,000 soldiers at NATO headquarters, now there are 300,000. Dajmanowski said he added that the soldiers will arrive in the country under threat even before the war starts. According to him, there are various ready-made scenarios to adequately respond to aggression. NATO maintains eight battle groups across Eastern Europe aimed at acting as an initial frontline defense in the event of a Russian invasion. Four are in the Baltic states and Poland, and these were supplemented by the creation of four more in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia after the attack on Ukraine. Germany said this month it would contribute a brigade of troops to defend Lithuania, where the country leads a 1,000-member battle group, although it emerged that the bulk of the extra 3,500 Berlin intends to contribute would be based on its own soil, ready to move farther east if needed.