Royal Navy warships from Portsmouth stand ready to act as a shield for Nato after 'outrageous' Russian invasion of Ukraine by 'unhinged' Putin Cold War admiral says

Retired Vice Admiral Bob Cooling, a former assistant chief of naval staff, blasted president Putin’s actions, branding the Russian leader ‘unhinged’ as he warned the invasion of Ukraine must serve as a ‘wake-up’ call for western democracies.

It comes after Kremlin forces reportedly launched strikes against Ukrainian military bases this morning, with explosions witnessed near cities in Ukraine.

More than 300 sailors from two Portsmouth warships – HMS Diamond and HMS Trent – are due to join a Nato fleet in the eastern Mediterranean to provide reassurance for allies in the region.

Diamond is expected to leave shortly, with her departure having been delayed multiple times due to a reported defect with the ship. Meanwhile, HMS Trent is already in the Mediterranean.

Speaking to The News about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vice Adm Cooling said: ‘This is the worst crisis we have seen in this century and I think it’s a wake-up call for our government and governments across Europe that the world is a very unstable place.

‘What’s happened is outrageous. It is unprecedented at the scale of aggression by Putin. We all ought to be extremely focused on how we stop what is going on.

‘It is just staggering that Putin feels he can actually abuse international law as comprehensively as he has…I think he must be unhinged.’

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Ukraine is not part of Nato, which means direct military action by Britain and its allies against Russia ‘won’t happen’, Vice Adm Cooling said.

But he said Trent and Diamond could assist in providing surveillance and act as a show of force if the conflict escalates.

He added: ‘[The ships] are there as a Nato safeguard. Their job is to defend Nato and they will do a superb job if it comes to that – I don’t think it will come to that. But they are deployed forward and will be a defensive line if this escalates. I doubt it will escalate.’

In a pre-dawn TV statement. Vladimir Putin said Russia did not plan to occupy Ukraine and demanded that its military lay down their arms.

Moments later, attacks were reported on Ukrainian military targets.

Ukraine said that ‘Putin has launched a full-scale invasion’ of the country.

Russian military vehicles were said to have breached the border in a number of places, in the north, south and east, including from Belarus.

At least seven people are known to have been killed in Russian attacks, police say. Another 19 are missing.

Vice Adm Cooling has since called on the UK government to boost its defence spending and ensure ‘robust’ and ‘severe’ economic sanctions are placed on Russia in retaliation for the attack.

Speaking about the UK’s initial response to the crisis, he added: ‘I thought our initial range of sanctions announced by the prime minister yesterday and the day before did not go far enough. I think that will change very quickly now.

‘It’s good to see the European Union is taking a very robust view of this action and it is implementing a number of really severe sanctions. I’ve no doubt as the US wakes up this morning another tranche of extremely robust sanctions will happen.

‘[But] These sanctions will impact mostly on the innocent men, women and children of Russia. The people actually causing the problem are fairly well insulated from the day to day economic impacts.’

Vice Adm Cooling served with the Royal Navy from 1979 to 2011 and formerly commanded Britain’s last aircraft carrier, the former HMS Illustrious.

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