HOPE that Ukraine’s incursion into Russia will result in a rapid and to the war is “wishful thinking”, according to former armed forces minister James Heappey.

Asked if the it will result in a quick end to the war, he told GB News: “It is wishful thinking. I’m afraid it is.

“It is good in that it proves that Ukraine is perfectly capable of getting on the offensive. It shows just how attritional the battle on the long-standing front line now is, where they’re just in this constant grind.

“Whichever side is on the offensive is running up against very well-prepared defences. At the moment, Russia is moving forward very, very slowly and at enormous cost to its army, where the defences are less well prepared, Ukraine has shown that it can break through and gain some pretty quick success.

“The West should use this as a siren call to keep backing Ukraine, because they’re showing us what they’re capable of. But I’m afraid that it means nothing in terms of accelerating towards the end of the war.”

On Labour’s defence spending plans, he said: “I saw an extraordinary line in one of the newspapers that said that Rachel Reeves is seeking cuts within non-frontline departments like defence.

“It’s interesting that in these geopolitical times, defence is not a frontline department, and also at odds with the sort of thing that Labour was saying during the election campaign, when they were making lots of noise about their enthusiasm for increased defence spending.

“This nonsense that they’ve found this incredible black hole that they had no idea of. I mean, I just think that that is already exposed as a nonsense…

“Politics is easy, if you’re going to say yes to everyone. The problem is eventually it catches up with you and you have to start making choices that will be unpopular.

“What I’m hearing is that if, for example, a similar pay deal [to train drivers] were done to the armed forces, and who would say that our soldiers say, as aviators, don’t deserve a pay rise, but if the Treasury says they get that pay rise but it comes out of the existing MoD budget, there’s no new money for it, then the obvious consequence is, fewer tanks, fewer planes, fewer ships, in order to pay troops more.

“I’m not saying the troops don’t deserve more money, but just pointing out that if no new money comes from the Treasury, then it has to come at the expense of something the department is already doing.”