The Russian army is a ‘formidable foe’ and ‘significantly more lethal’ now than when Putin invaded Ukraine, one of the UK’s top army chiefs has warned.

Lt Gen Mike Elviss, who commands a key NATO reactionary force, says he is concerned that the British public do not realise the scale of the threat posed by Putin in the same way Russia’s neighbours do although it is ‘proximate’.

His warning came after the Daily Mail revealed yesterday that Britain’s supply of drones would be exhausted within a week if Russia invaded NATO territory.

The general, head of the UK headquartered Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC), said the alliance would currently not be able to withstand a Russian incursion although he said Russia was not yet in a position to make one.

He also insisted AI and technology were now crucial in the defence battle to win the war against any adversary.

Explaining how his force was learning fast from the war waged in Ukraine, he said the four-year ‘industrial level’ war had ‘battle-hardened and battle-tested’ Putin’s forces.

The ARRC is one of NATO’s two emergency response forces, comprising 60,000 British, Italian, Canadian and Swedish soldiers at full deployment.

Since a major restructure last month, the military capability of the British Army has come under its command at its HQ near Gloucester, meaning Lt Gen Elviss is the British Army's de facto boss.

‘I have the lion’s share of the fighting force under command bar those small elements such as special forces,’ he told today’s Telegraph.

He has just deployed expert military planners from his team to analyse Putin’s war machine from disused London Underground tunnels simulating the kind of protected command post Ukraine has taught them is now needed.

He explained that its World War 2 style location beneath the capital’s streets would replace traditional HQs which typically might be ‘housed in a sea of tents’ which now would be a ‘prime target for missiles and drones’

He said the move to such a subterranean ‘digital headquarters’ was necessary for protection against ballistic missiles and for survival while stressing the need to be ‘as close as reasonably possible to the threat’.

Having studied what has worked ‘against all the odds in Ukraine’, he said: ‘You need artificial intelligence in your decision-making if you’re going to decide and act faster than an adversary.’

Lt Gen Elviss said he believed that while Russia and Putin were not ‘ready to start the next round of conquest further west’ and the alliance as not ready to deal with that, they be taken ‘at face value’ in their declarations.

“Vladimir Putin has always coveted Kyiv. He said as much. He invaded. He said the same about other places. We have to be worst case planners in the military.’

And while nations like Sweden, Finland and Estonia were ‘really clear eyed’ about what it means to them because the ‘the further north and east one goes in Europe, the more society recognises the danger presented by Putin, he stressed we could ‘ill afford’ to lose the ‘race to reorientate’ when the Ukraine war ends and must be ready.

He also warned the political argument for defence ‘had not been won’ and should be a ‘central element’ in what happened next in politics because things had changed since the end of the Cold War although he suggested this had not landed in the public’s psyche in the UK.

Yesterday, defence sources confirmed to the Daily Mail that British soldiers were chronically ill equipped to respond to a Russian invasion.

Defence chiefs have consistently pleaded for an increase in defence budgets as the state of the UK’s depleted armed forces have led to concerns we could not even defend our own territory.

The UK spends only 2.6% of GDP on defence with Labour promising to lift this to 3% by the next Parliament but countries like Poland spend 4.48% and Lithuania 4%.

Last year’s Strategic Defence Review emphasised the immediacy of the Russian threat but detailed plans to enact some of the review’s recommendations aimed at urgently boosting UK armed forces have still not been released.