![22 Oct 2025 - 42 Commando Royal Marines conduct boarding drills onboard RFA Lyme Bay. The Royal Marines Special Operations Maritime Task Group [SOMTG] primarily composed of Royal Marines from J Company, 42 Commando RM are heading to take part in Exercise BALTIC DAWN [which forms part of the wider TARASSIS activities], onboard RFA Lyme Bay on which the Plymouth based Commandos will practise and develop their Maritime Interdiction skills alongside members of 47 Commando RM who are an integral part of the SOMTG and the UKs elite amphibious boat operators. Later they will exercise with the Army???s 3rd Ranger Battalion, where they will conduct ship to shore link ups on Saaremaa Island off the west coast of Estonia, developing inter-operability skills with the Army as well as a key NATO partner. RFA Lyme Bay is a Bay Class landing and logistic ship operated by the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Exercise TARASSIS marks a step change in Northern European Defence cooperation. From the Arctic Circle to the shores of the Baltic, a series of largescale military activities will demonstrate the unity, power and reach of partner nations defending peace and security in northern Europe. TARASSIS is the most ambitious live activity of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) since it was established at the NATO 2014 Summit, as a regional security cooperation structure for participating nations. Activities began in early Sept and run until the end of Oct, involving thousands of troops, sailors and aircrew, with ships and aircraft operating across the North Atlantic, Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea Region. TARASSIS brings together a series of military activities to demonstrate the ability of the JEF to act together and project power in response to a threat to regional security.](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/SEI_274878211-f75a.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
A damning new report from the Commons Defence Committee has shown the UK is ‘nowhere near’ where it should be to defend itself in case of a war.
The stark warning also cited the UK’s failure to meet its NATO obligations and its heavy reliance on the United States for intel, satellites, troop transport and refuelling of planes.
The challenges facing the Government and defence industry were laid bare in the parliamentary committee’s report.
‘The UK lacks a plan for defending the homeland and overseas territories,’ the MPs warned as they called for the public to be given more information about the scale of the threat and the response that is required.
The committee’s chairman, Labour’s Tan Dhesi, said: ‘Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, unrelenting disinformation campaigns, and repeated incursions into European airspace mean that we cannot afford to bury our heads in the sand.’
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‘Government must be willing to grasp the nettle and prioritise homeland defence and resilience.’
The report stressed that there needs to be a ‘coordinated effort’ to communicate the threat level to the public.
Earlier this year, two leading experts warned Metro that the UK was ‘sleepwalking into a bloody ambush’.
Dr Simon Bennett from the University of Leicester School of Business suggested the UK may not emerge sovereign and free unless it wakes up.
Starmer’s refusal to set a deadline on his commitment to spend a larger percentage of GDP on defence only ‘emboldens Putin’, Dr Bennett said.
‘There is no sense that we have developed a war mentality or that we intend to develop a war economy,’ he said.
Chatham House Russian expert Keir Giles agreed, but pointed out this year’s defence review did focus on raising ‘civil awareness and resilience’.
He said: ‘It seems they’ve recognised that there is a fundamental mission of educating Britain’s public and its voters as to the threats facing them and other UK institutions.
‘But this comes after decades of failure by the government to not only explain that the fundamental rights and freedoms and prosperity that the UK enjoys are under threat, but also that they are worth defending.’
Even as the UK’s defence capabilities are questioned, at least 13 sites across the UK have been identified for new factories to make munitions and military explosives, with Defence Secretary John Healey expecting the arms industry to break ground at the first plant next year.
In a speech in London today, he will say the ‘new era of threat’ presents an economic opportunity with at least 1,000 new jobs to be created.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has funded a number of feasibility studies for new energetics factories – producing explosives, pyrotechnics and propellants – to kickstart high-volume production in the UK for the first time in nearly two decades.
Potential sites for the ‘factories of the future’ include Grangemouth in Scotland, Teesside in north-east England and Milford Haven in Wales.
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