Quote:In his address to the International Armoured Vehicles conference in Twickenham on Wednesday, Gen Sir Patrick stressed that the Army, which is predicted to have just 72,500 fully trained soldiers by 2025, would not be big enough to fight an all-out war with Russia even if it numbered 120,000.

Defence sources previously told The Telegraph that Gen Sir Patrick wants there to be a shift in the mindset of British men and women, in which they think like troops and are mentally prepared for a possible war with Russia.

In a recent speech, Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, warned that the UK was “moving from a post-war to a pre-war world” with conflict expected internationally within five years. Mr Shapps also said he would like Britain to spend 3 per cent of GDP on defence, up from the 2 per cent it is currently committed to spending.

A Whitehall source on Wednesday night told The Times that the training of Ukrainian civilians on British soil could go on to become a “mission rehearsal” to train people across the UK to follow suit.

“The post-Cold War period of instability is over, a new chapter has begun where a new alliance of adversaries are testing the West’s timidity. Britain has done well to rekindle its Cold War statecraft, but we can only continue to do that if we upgrade our defence posture.”

“We won’t be immune. And as the pre-war generation, we’ve got to similarly prepare, and that is a whole nation undertaking. Ukraine brutally reminds us that while regular armies start wars, it is citizen armies that finish and win them.”

Quote:There's a bizarre but potentially serious constitutional crisis unfolding in Poland currently, after former Polish interior minister Mariusz Kaminski and his deputy Maciej Wonsik were arrested over allegations of abuse of power. A court has also sought to bar them from office for at least five years, a ruling which they have ignored.

The whole thing is set against the backdrop of a high-drama showdown between Poland’s new government of pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk (only in office for a month now) and the now opposition Law and Justice party (PiS). Kaminski and Wonsik were actually arrested inside the presidential palace of President Andrzej Duda, ally of the previous right-wing government.

PiS is calling the pair "political prisoners" after a court sentenced them to two years in prison for abuse of power stemming from their stint leading an anti-corruption office in 2007. Their enemies have further charged that they've 'subverted democracy'. President Duda, however, had pardoned them for the crime back in 2015 - a pardon which he says remains valid and can't be nulled by the court's decision.

But Tusk has called the standoff "unbelievable" - also as angry PiS supporters gathered outside the presidential palace as the arrests unfolded. Tusk's "Civic Platform" party considers it an "equality before the law" situation for which no political official should be immune.

The other side says that pro-EU bureaucrats are wasting no time in using all the powers of the state to declare open season on anti-Brussels political enemies, however.