Britain will boost defence spending by billions of pounds but still cut thousands of troops from the Army, Boris Johnson said today.
Speaking at the NATO Summit in Madrid, the Prime Minister said the UK would lift cash for the armed forces from 2% of GDP to 2.5% by the end of the decade.
Based on current figures, the pledge would amount to an extra £55.1bn by 2030, it is understood. But he did not spell out fully how.
Grilled by the Mirror, he vowed to press on with cutting the Army by 9,500 soldiers - leaving an Army of just 72,500 soldiers while bolstering their gear.
And he refused to back down from dropping the Tory manifesto pledge to raise defence spending "by at least 0.5% above inflation every year of the new Parliament”.
It comes after a Cabinet row over defence spending amid the war in Ukraine, with Defence Secretary Ben Wallace calling publicly for it to rise from the middle of the decade.
Speaking from the Nato conference in Madrid, Boris Johnson said:“I just think that the most important thing to our armed forces is that they are brilliantly equipped, superbly able to do the jobs they need.
“We have the best troops in the world - I want them to have the kit that they need.”
Mr Johnson insisted: “Last year we spent the third biggest amount on defence spending of any country nowhere in the world in 2021.
“We have increased defence spending by £24bn.”
Highlighting equipment boosts, he said it was necessary to "invest in the long term" while adapting to a "more dangerous and more competitive world".
Unveiling the finding boost, the PM added: "The logical conclusion of the investments on which we propose to embark, these decisions, is that we'll reach 2.5% of GDP on defence by the end of the decade.”
The rise is less than the amount demanded by Tory Party critics, who had called for a hike to at least 3% of GDP.
All NATO members are expected to spend at least 2% of their GDP on their militaries.
But in reality, the UK is one of just nine of the alliance’s 30 nations to meet the target.
Mr Johnson, still reeling from double by-election defeats last week and facing a fresh mutiny from Conservative rebels when he returns to Westminster on Monday, said the West must support Ukraine "as much as we can" as Kyiv forces bid to oust Russian invaders "in the next few months".
He told a press conference in the Spanish capital that Ukrainian leaders "do see a way in which they can change the dynamic this year, in the next few months, and I think that's important, and I think it means we have to help them as much as we can".
The PM said Ukraine wanted to force Russians out of territory in the eastern Donbas and southern Ukraine which they have occupied since invading in February.
He added: "We think that they do indeed have it in their power to repel the Russians and to get them back to the pre-February 24 position".
Quizzed about Ukraine's potential future membership of NATO, Mr Johnson said: "Western powers, whether all NATO or just some NATO countries, should be offering deterrence by denial so that we so fortify Ukraine with Nato-grade weaponry, plus intelligence, plus training, that no future attack is conceivable.
"That's stage one, and that's the position that we want to get to, and I think that will prove to be a very, very effective solution.
"There can then be a further argument down the track about NATO, but that would be my interim solution."
A source close to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace welcomed the funding boost.
They said: “The Defence Secretary has always been clear that as the threat changes, so should defence spending.
“In 2020 the Prime Minister reversed decades of under investment in defence and he rightly responded to Russia’s danger by continuing to invest in defence, for which the Defence Secretary is very grateful.”
