The UK has pledged to add a further £75 billion to its defence budget over the next six years, taking spending well above the Nato target and putting pressure on its European allies to follow suit.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said during a visit to Poland on Tuesday that the new package was ‘the biggest boost to our national defence for a generation’, while his office argued that it ‘sets a new standard for other major European Nato economies to follow’.

The move will enable the UK to spend the equivalent of 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence by the end of the decade.

Speaking at a press conference with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, Sunak argued that now was not the time for complacency, saying: “We cannot continue to worry about what price America will pay or what burden America will bear if we are not willing to make sacrifices for our own security.”

The pledge, which Sunak insisted would not require budget cuts or tax rises, would increase Britain’s annual defence spending to £87 billion by 2030-31.

“A game changer for European security”

“If all NATO countries spent at least 2.5 per cent of their GDP on defence, our collective budget would increase by more than £140 billion,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement accompanying Sunak’s announcement.

London said the new package would include an extra £10 billion investment in munitions production over the next decade and radical reforms to Britain’s defence procurement procedures. It will also create a new ‘Defence Innovation Agency’ to boost military research and development.

“Today is a turning point for European security and an important moment for British defence,” said Sunak.

Responding to Sunak’s announcement, Labour’s shadow defence secretary John Healey said his party would “like to see a fully funded plan” to reach 2.5 per cent, but that “the Conservatives have shown time and again that they cannot be trusted on defence and we will be looking closely at the details of their announcement”.

Sunak urges Europeans to spend more

After Warsaw, he travelled to Berlin and met Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Rishi Sunak told European countries that they must increase their defence spending to ensure that the United States remains committed to NATO in the future.

The prime minister said the continent must take more responsibility for its defence in an environment where Donald Trump is running for a second term in the White House.

Speaking with Scholz in Berlin, Sunak said US presidents have “reasonably” always demanded that Europe spend more on defence.

He argued that European countries could not ask the US to fund the continent’s security unless they were “prepared to sacrifice” themselves.

The Prime Minister noted that it was important for Europe to show that it was taking on more of the burden ‘to keep the United States committed to NATO’.

British helicopters heading to Russian border for NATO exercises

NATO is planning a training exercise in Finland on Friday in an area close to the Russian border.

The UK is taking part in the exercises. A squadron of nine British Army Apache attack helicopters, worth £40 million each, are heading to Finland to take part in what has been described as ‘the biggest Nato exercise since the Cold War’.

After Finland, four Wildcat reconnaissance helicopters and two RAF Chinook support helicopters will travel to Estonia, where they will remain for an extended period.

The exercise in Finland involving Apache attack helicopters is called ‘Arrow’, while the exercise in Estonia involving all three types of helicopter is called ‘Swift Response’.

The exercises are part of Steadfast Defender 24, which tests NATO’s plans to strengthen its defences in Europe against an “imminent enemy”.

The exercises involve 90,000 troops from 32 members of the military alliance, as well as around 20,000 British personnel.

Mass graves found in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, where the Israeli army withdrew after months of assault and occupation, have once again exposed Israeli brutality. The United Nations has called for a full and independent investigation.

The Israeli army withdrew from Khan Younis on 7 April after four months of ground occupation. With the withdrawal came the discovery of mass graves in the city and the recovery of bodies from the rubble of houses and roadsides. These efforts, led by civil defence teams, were joined by Palestinians trying to find and identify their lost relatives.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA, quoting health sources in Gaza, reported that search and rescue teams exhumed 190 bodies of men and women of various ages killed by Israeli soldiers from a mass grave in the Nasser Hospital complex.

The United Nations (UN) said the news of the mass graves in Gaza was very disturbing and that a full and independent investigation should be carried out in the areas where the graves were found.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric was responding to questions from journalists at the daily press briefing. Asked about the news that mass graves had been found in Nasser Hospital after Shifa Hospital, Dujarric said: “The news is very disturbing. Stressing the need for a full and independent investigation into the areas where the graves were found, Dujarric also said that this clearly shows why a ceasefire is needed.

Dujarric reiterated the need for greater access for humanitarian workers, the protection of hospitals and the release of detainees.

In a written statement, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said that “it is regrettable and shameful to see such a blatant violation of international law and humanitarian values in the 21st century before the eyes of the whole world, international organisations and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)”. The statement condemned Israel’s repeated violations of international law and humanitarian law in Gaza and called on the international community to intervene immediately to stop these violations and to launch the necessary investigations to hold those responsible to account.

The statement noted that the killings, destruction and violence in the West Bank in recent weeks are at least as dangerous and reckless as those in Gaza, and that attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinian civilians and their property under the protection of Israeli soldiers must stop.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU) parliamentary group in the German Bundestag wants a complete ban on agricultural and food imports from Russia and Belarus in order to “weaken Russia’s fighting power”.

Albert Stegemann, the CDU’s agriculture expert, told dpa that Russia was financing its war against Ukraine with exports from the agricultural and food sector.

“This must be prevented. Higher tariffs on Russian grain are not enough,” Stegemann said.

The CDU/CSU argues that the SPD has been too close to Putin in the past and has not done enough to support Ukraine.

In addition, the CDU, like the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) in the European Parliament (EP), is focusing its message on supporting the agricultural sector, which is also on the agenda in Germany, especially after the recent EU-wide farmer protests.

However, the European Commission is considering imposing tariffs to reduce Russia’s income from agricultural imports, arguing that these are outside the scope of sanctions. Food and fertilisers have so far been exempted from EU trade restrictions so as not to ‘undermine global food security’.

Meanwhile, on 12 March, a majority of MEPs in the European Parliament called for a total ban on agricultural and food imports from Russia to the EU.

While Stegemann argued that Germany and Europe are not dependent on Russian grain, the CDU motion, which is expected to be debated in the Bundestag on Thursday, calls on the government to prepare the option of an import ban if an agreement cannot be reached at EU level.