Britain should attack Russia with laser beams, says RAF chief

The head of Britain’s Royal Air Force has warned that the armed forces could face a fight against Russia in space.

According to The Times, Air Chief Marshall Sir Stephen Hillier believes that if Moscow launched a chemical weapons attack on Salisbury, it is proof that they could defy international rulings to destroy valuable satellites in orbit.

In a speech to mark the 100th anniversary of the RAF on Sunday, Hillier said: ‘I don’t foresee, if you like, a war in space, but I can see us being contested for use of space and for people trying to deny some of our specific capabilities.

‘We already see that to a significant degree and we need to be prepared to deal with that threat.’

His stark comments come as the government today publishes a plan to respond to modern Russian warfare across social media and cyberspace in the wake of the Salisbury attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

‘These people should be in no doubt that we will use every capability at our disposal to defeat them’, Theresa May said in the foreword of the review.

The stark warning comes after Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury earlier this month.

Last week, the Court of Protection gave doctors the go-ahead to take blood samples from the Skripals for testing by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Although it is believed that the Skripals were poisoned with Novichok, a soviet nerve agent, the Kremlin has continued to deny involvement.

‘History shows that British statements must be verified. We demand full transparency of the investigation and full cooperation with Russia’, Russian ambassador Alexander Vladimirovich Yakovenko said last week as he refuted the claims once more.