Letter: Cuts to Royal Navy leave us vulnerable

Dodgy Dave likes to boast the nation's defences are safe in his hands, so when a Russian spy ship The Yantar sailed into UK waters off the east coast, military chiefs dispatched the only navy ship available to shadow it, a river class patrol vessel HMS Severn.

Is the Kremlin testing Britain's response with its incursions knowing the military have been hit with Dave's defence cuts? Our fleet of warships is down to six destroyers and 13 frigates but one type 45 Destroyer and one type 23 frigate are allegedly to be laid up at Portsmouth due to lack of sailors.

With Russian submarines' intrusions into home waters and Russian bombers flying off our coasts is Dodgy Dave telling porkies when saying defences of our country are safe in his hands when he has made thousands of personnel redundant from the navy and army and RAF since 2010. Now the navy flagship HMS Ocean is to be decommissioned before its sell by date after having had a £65 million refit four years ago.

It looks as if very soon we won't have a surface fleet worthy of the name navy, forget a new Cold War, we wouldn't fancy our chances in another war.

Military chiefs in Moscow and Beijing must be splitting their sides laughing at our defences.

J Pond, Shrewsbury

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