Johnson to Fix Defense Spending at 2.3 Percent of GDP Despite Media Rumors

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the armed forces needed to speed up their purchases of new equipment, adding that his department's budget, which had been established before the conflict in Ukraine erupted, should be increased.

Downing Street has denied media speculation that the UK defense budget will rise to 2.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The Daily Telegraph claimed that Downing Street intervened on Tuesday to stop Defense Secretary Ben Wallace calling for his department's budget to be raised as a result of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine.

Wallace did not make the widely reported demand in his speech to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Land Warfare Conference in Westminster on Tuesday.

On Wednesday the minister insisted on Times Radio that there were no divisions in government over the issue. But he confirmed he had edited his speech at Downing Street's request, saying that was done so as not to upstage Johnson's address in Madrid.

"There were some words in my speech that were taken out because the Prime Minister is going to say them today," Wallace said. "I think the center just wanted to make sure that he said it before the Defense Secretary said it. It is perfectly legitimate. It was his words."

The Defense Secretary also told Sky News that the British armed forces needed to speed up their purchases of new equipment, and that the present budget was set before the conflict erupted and should be raised.

"We were prepared to take certain vulnerabilities onboard in the middle of the decade as we got rid of some equipment and re-equipped anew. I think the invasion of Russia into Ukraine has changed that," Wallace said.

"My settlement was done before Russia invaded Ukraine," he added. "Russia is very, very dangerous on the world stage. The world is less secure than it was two, three years ago and is not looking likely to change for the rest of the decade. That is the moment, in the middle of the decade, to say we should pledge to increased funding."

The Ministry of Defense spent £58.4Bln in the 2020-21 financial year, making it the sixth-highest funded ministry, accounting for 5.2 percent of government spending.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson was set to urge national leaders at the NATO summit in Madrid on Wednesday to "dig deep" and raise their military budgets to more than the alliance's two percent target, while boasting that Britain's military pending is now at 2.3 per cent.

Former US president Donald Trump, who tried to mend relations with Russia early in his presidency, came under fire after telling the 2018 NATO leaders' summit that members should spend four percent of GDP on defense. Trump complained that the US, whose huge military budget was then 3.6 percent of its GDP, was subsidizing its allies' defense while they continued to buy gas and oil from Russia.

The stated aims of the Russian operation are the defense of the breakaway Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics and the demilitarisation and de-Nazification of the Kiev regime.