The EU’s defence commissioner has warned Europe must be capable of building a drone army in case Russia attacks.

Military intelligence has suggested Russian forces could be ready to strike a NATO country within the next five years.

In order to defend themselves, Andrius Kubilius says Europeans will require millions of drones and need to start preparing now.

“Russia can have around five million drones, so we need to have capacities bigger than those in order to prevail,” he told Sky News, warning that if President Putin ordered an attack, the target would face a “battle-tested” Russian army with the ability to use millions of drones”.

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine sparked a revolution in drone warfare.

Facing one of the world’s strongest militaries, the Ukrainians used the cheap, adaptable technology to their advantage.

It estimates its drone units are now responsible for 80% of Russian frontline losses.

Mr Kubilius has visited Ukraine to learn the lessons from the battlefield.

Along the 1200km (745 miles) front line is an area nicknamed “Death Valley”.

“Nothing can move. Everything is controlled by drones. A traditional tank in that zone survives six minutes,” he explained.

This year, Ukraine’s expected to produce more than four million drones.

Contemplating how many units other countries would need, the commissioner used the example of his home country of Lithuania.

The former Soviet republic shares a border of around 900km (559 miles) with Russia and Belarus.

“If Ukrainians need four million for 1200km, we need something like three million drones for one year if the war is starting, if ‘Day X’ is coming,” he said.

To try to stay ahead in the fight, both Russia and Ukraine are constantly updating their drone technology.

For this reason, the commissioner believes that rather than stockpiling drones now, which will go out of date, Europe should instead build up teams of pilots, engineers, and producers ready to scale up production should the time come.

“On the European continent, at the moment, there are only two armies battle-tested with the ability to use millions of drones: one is Russian, which is planning new aggressions; another one is Ukrainian,” said Mr Kubilius.

“We need to learn a lot from Ukraine… how to organise defences against millions of drones, and also how to make your defence industry innovative,” he added.

It’s a point many in the business agree with.

German start-up STARK has been testing loitering munitions or “attack drones” ready to supply to Kyiv.

“It’s all made for easy handling for soldiers, so you don’t have to use any tools on the front line, and you just plug in the rudders,” said STARK’s senior vice president, Josef Kranawetvogl, as he quickly clicked the unit’s tail together.

He spent 18 years in the German military before making the jump to weapons production.

He says staying ahead of the enemy requires tactics and technology to be frequently updated.

“Every day you have to adapt. You have such fast development cycles in Ukraine – two or three weeks, then there’s something new upcoming and you have to be prepared for this.”

Since the start of June, Russia has repeatedly used drone swarms to attack Ukraine.

It involves hundreds of drones hammering cities in one night.

I asked Josef whether he believes NATO’s European members are ready to defend against such an attack.

“I see quite a lot of European armies starting right now to develop or to purchase unmanned systems, and it’s a good development, but it’s all about time. How can we speed up?” he replied.

Close to the border with France, another German start-up, Alpine Eagle, is testing defence drone units for Ukraine.

“This is our interceptor drone,” explained the company’s CEO, Jan-Hendrik Boelens, holding up a prototype which looks a bit like a small black plane. The interceptor is carried underneath a large grey drone.

On-board radar means it can be fired at enemy drones up to 5km (3 miles) away.

Jan thinks that could be a game changer in an aerial battle as it means hostile units could be picked off before they get close.

And he believes NATO is unprepared if one of its countries was to be hit by a wave of drones like those in Ukraine.

“We are absolutely not ready in my view,” he said.

He explained that Ukraine produced around 1.3 million drones a year last year.

“I would be surprised if NATO even bought a thousand drones last year. I think Germany procured, I don’t know, 100, maybe 200. So now you do the math on what that means and how quickly you run out of drones.

“If Ukraine consumed 1.3 million drones per year, that’s 3,000 a day. So, if you have 100 in your inventory, that would not last an hour.”

A spokesperson from the German Defence Ministry said the numbers stated “do not closely reflect reality”.

“Drones are now part of everyday life for soldiers, they are omnipresent and are used extensively in service operations and training,” they added.

Drones are a key part of NATO’s defence plan.

The alliance’s leadership has repeatedly said producing, procuring, and protecting against drones is a priority.

At the NATO summit, members agreed to boost defence spending to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035.

In addition to increasing training and development, NATO Chief Mark Rutte has said he wants more investment in drone technology as well as boosting air defences fivefold.

“We see Russia’s deadly terror from the skies over Ukraine every day, and we must be able to defend ourselves from such attacks,” he told an audience at the summit.

Lessons from Ukraine have prompted members to embrace unmanned technology in various ways.

Britain is one of the countries pledging to put drones front and centre of its new defence plan.

Earlier this month, the government’s Strategic Defence Review outlined a new way forward for British Army warfighting based around a drone-centric 20-40-40 strategy where uncrewed systems are deployed for first wave attacks, before tanks, attack helicopters and other manned platforms arrive on the battlefield.

In essence, the new weapons mix would be 20% traditional heavy platforms (like tanks), 40% single-use expendable drones and munitions, and the remaining 40% reusable, high-end drones.

It’s been confirmed that an extra £2bn will be spent on army drones this parliament.

Defence Secretary John Healey said Britain’s adversaries were working more in alliance and technology was changing how war was fought.

“Drones now kill more people than traditional artillery in the war in Ukraine and whoever gets new technology into the hands of their armed forces the quickest will win,” he said.

This week, the prime minister announced a deal with Ukraine to co-produce drones.

Germany and Denmark have made similar agreements with the German Ministry of Defence, telling Sky News that drones are a top priority.

In a drone showroom in central Berlin, we meet Sven Weizenegger, head of the German military’s cyber innovation hub.

He said they have noticed a boom in pitches from potential suppliers.

Every day, his department receives up to 20 enquiries from companies asking how their products could be used by the military.

He believes things need to move more quickly so soldiers get weapons faster.

“We are very advanced in the innovation process. That means we have a lot of ideas and many companies that are ready to deliver,” he explained. “Unfortunately, what we are not good at right now, due to our current processes, is getting these things into real operations, into frontline use. We need to fix that.”

Germany has promised to turbo-charge defence spending, with the Chancellor pledging to create the “strongest conventional army in Europe”.

Plans announced this week include boosting unmanned systems and air defences.

Read more:
NATO chief calls for 400% increase in air and missile defence
Putin humiliated by Ukrainian drone attack
Ukrainian drone attack puts Russians and the world on notice

The German Ministry of Defence said it couldn’t reveal stock levels due to security, but a spokesperson confirmed the country is investing in a range of different units, including signing two contracts for attack drones.

“We are procuring not just a few but quite large quantities and testing them directly with the troops,” the spokesperson added.

However, they agreed with the EU defence commissioner that rather than stockpiling tech which would go out of date, it was better to have a system in place to allow for large quantities to be made quickly in the event of war.

In May, the EU approved a €150bn (£125bn) loan scheme to boost defence production across the bloc.

Hours after giving birth, with her son rushed away to a high dependency unit, as she lay broken and bleeding, Morgan Joines overheard a midwife blaming her. 

Her son had been born with wet lung after an emergency and traumatic caesarean section.

“I overheard [the midwife] tell a student nurse I was the reason my son was ill, because I was too lazy to push,” she told Sky News.

“I was broken. I genuinely believed for ages afterwards that I had failed my son.

“I thought I was the reason he was ill.”

Her son was born at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, part of the Oxford University’s Hospital Trust. Morgan is one of more than 500 families who say they have been harmed by maternity care at the Trust.

On Monday, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, announced a “rapid” national investigation into NHS maternity services.

A taskforce, chaired by Mr Streeting and made up of experts and bereaved families, will first investigate up to ten of the most concerning maternity and neonatal units.

And campaigners – calling themselves the Families Failed by OUH Maternity Services – are calling for Oxford to be on that initial list.

‘I thought I was going to die’

The unit was rated “requires improvement” in its last inspection by the government’s watchdog, the Care Quality Commission, in April 2023.

The CQC flagged issues around maintaining patient dignity, and said medicines were not always safely stored and managed. The unit did not manage the control of infection consistently it said, and wards were not always kept clean.

One mum told the campaign group she thought she was going to die after being left alone while in labour and denied pain relief.

Another said she is reluctant to consider having another child and feels a “profound loss of trust in the NHS”.

Trust to meet campaign group

Yvonne Christley, Chief Nursing Officer at OUH, said she apologised “for not being able to respond in detail about individual patient cases”.

“We regret any instance where we fail to provide the service that women and their families should expect. When this happens, we make every effort to review individual cases to understand what went wrong and how we can improve.”

She said the trust “make every effort” to keep women and families informed of what action it has taken, and said it is committed to maintaining an open dialogue with community groups.

“The Trust has agreed to meet with the campaign group and is eager to collaborate with them to implement the necessary changes and restore confidence in our services. These meetings are currently being scheduled.”

Caesarean sections account for approximately 40% of all births at OUH.

A ‘degrading strip wash’

A few hours after Morgan’s son had been whisked away to another part of the hospital, a nurse tried to force her to take oramorph, a high strength painkiller, she said.

When she declined to take the drug, having previously had a bad reaction, she said staff “claimed I was being difficult”.

“[They said] to just take the meds and get it over and done with.”

When Morgan was unable to get out of bed, she says the same nurse then gave her a “degrading” strip wash, without her consent.

The unit, she said, felt like it was against C-sections.

“Even though it was recommended by doctors that I had caesarean, it was medically necessary, I felt I should have done more to help him,” Morgan said.

Waiting eight hours for a C-section

When Kate* was 38 weeks pregnant with her third IVF baby, she was induced.

The doctors had tried to burst her waters, but realised her daughter was breech when the midwife felt her feet near the bottom of the birth canal, telling her: “I’m glad those didn’t break, I think I just felt a foot.”

At 11pm Kate reluctantly agreed to a C-section, but was told it was “safer to wait until the light of day” to go down to theatre.

She was sent away to an observation area experiencing intense contractions for more than six hours. In those hours, she said she was abandoned without pain relief and was bleeding.

“I felt so alone in the dead of night. My husband had been sent home, and I just wanted someone to talk to, someone to help me.

“I was in so much pain labouring but the midwife made me feel like a hypochondriac.”

She said the situation was escalating, she was becoming dehydrated, and her daughter’s heartrate was climbing, yet no one intervened.

A registrar who began his shift at 7am, examined her and rushed her immediately to theatre.

At this point she was 9cm dilated and the registrar was “shouting at me, telling me not to push.”

Kate’s daughter was her third IVF pregnancy, and she became emotional when she talked about what might have happened, had that registrar not examined her so quickly in the morning.

“They gambled with her life,” she said.

“If my waters had broken and that registrar wasn’t there, she would have started to come with her feet first. Both my boys had shot out, so I could be talking now as a mum who lost her child.

“It didn’t need to even get to that point.

“I should have had my C-section five hours earlier.”

After she had given birth, she was left “in a pool of my own blood, just covered in blood” and had to pull herself out of bed to clean up.

She said she joined the campaign in the hopes women will be listened to in the future and not have to endure what she did.

‘I can’t get my baby out’

Annika Weldon had three miscarriages before giving birth to her son.

“I remember lying on the ward, screaming in pain and none of the other ladies around me were screaming like I was,” she said.

“It didn’t feel right, obviously when you go into labour you expect you are going to be in pain, but I just knew there was something not right.”

The midwife who checked her when she was in active labour could not tell her if she was 1cm or 10cm dilated, she said.

“We spent 45 minutes trying to get my baby out but this midwife that I was with was just so uncaring, she didn’t really explain what I should be doing.”

She had said early in the pregnancy she told doctors she wanted a C-section and “was told I couldn’t have one”.

“I kind of accepted that unless it was an emergency situation, I wouldn’t be able to have one but then in that moment I was like, I don’t know what else I can do here. I feel completely exhausted; I can’t get my baby out.

“I was just so tired and exhausted.”

Her son was born not breathing and she was haemorrhaging blood.

She was taken to emergency surgery and the last thing she remembers before waking up in the ward is throwing up in her hair.

She wasn’t told until much later the extent of her blood loss (2.5L) when she was struggling to pick up her own baby: “When I asked for help, I was made to feel like an inconvenience.”

‘OUH is particularly bad’

For Kim Thomas, co-founder of Families Failed by OUH Maternity Services and CEO of the Birth Trauma Association, these stories are nothing new.

But Oxford University Hospitals Trust is “particularly bad”, she says.

“They seem to have this incredibly arrogant attitude. They won’t take criticism.

“Women who complain are routinely dismissed. There’s a failure to learn from mistakes.”

She says OUH also has “poor postnatal care”: “Dirty wards, blood on the floor, women left in their own blood, women not helped.”

Yvonne Christley, from OUH, said: “We are never complacent and welcome all feedback, whether positive or negative, as we learn from both.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Too many families have been devastated by serious failings in NHS maternity and neonatal care.

“They deserve swift answers, and urgent action is essential to prevent future tragedies.”

They said the government was “immensely grateful” to families for sharing their experiences.

“[We] will work closely with families on this journey to help ensure no parent or baby is ever let down again.”

The Oxford campaign group is growing daily, with more like Kate, Morgan and Annika joining the ranks of those calling for change.

And each day that passes without answers is a reminder of the trauma they endured.

“It still hurts to look back on. It’s taken a while for me to stop blaming myself, but it doesn’t get easier,” Morgan said.

*Some names have been changed.

Weight loss and diabetes jabs taken by more than a million people in the UK have been linked to a potential serious side effect, with some deaths, according to data from the UK medicines regulator.

New figures from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) show the group of drugs that includes Mounjaro, Wegovy, and Ozempic may be associated with inflammation of the pancreas.

According to the MHRA, there have been 181 reported cases of acute or chronic pancreatitis linked to Mounjaro, with five deaths.

Wegovy and Ozempic have been linked with 113 reports of pancreatitis and one death.

Other, less widely used versions of so-called GLP-1 drugs have also been linked to cases and deaths.

There is no evidence that the drugs directly caused the deaths. And the evidence isn’t strong enough for the MHRA to restrict access.

That’s because pancreatitis also occurs in people who aren’t taking the GLP-1 drugs, with about 560 cases for every one million people in the general population. Gallstones and alcohol are the biggest causes.

But the MHRA and Genomics England are launching a new study to see whether some people have genes that put them at higher risk of developing pancreatitis if they take GLP-1 drugs.

People reported through the MHRA’s ‘yellow card’ alert system to have pancreatitis while using the jabs will be asked to provide a saliva sample and their genes tested.

Professor Matt Brown, chief scientific officer of Genomics England, said: “GLP-1 medicines like Ozempic and Wegovy have been making headlines, but like all medicines, there can be a risk of serious side effects.

“We believe there is real potential to minimise these, with many adverse reactions having a genetic cause.

“This next step in our partnership with the MHRA will generate data and evidence for safer and more effective treatment through more personalised approaches to prescription.”

The main symptoms of pancreatitis are severe pain in the centre of the tummy area, fever and nausea. Acute cases are treated in hospital with fluids and oxygen, and generally make a recovery within a few days.

But there can be complications, and around 5% of acute cases are fatal.

With all medicines, there is a balance of risk and benefit.

For people with type 2 diabetes or obesity, there are clear benefits to using the jabs.

They lower blood sugar levels, lead to rapid weight loss and reduce deaths from cardiovascular disease by a fifth.

Read more:
Weight loss jab warning from watchdog over unborn babies
GPs can prescribe weight loss jabs on the NHS
Ozempic to Wegovy – what are the weight loss injections?

But for people who are a bit overweight and have sourced the jabs privately to lose a few pounds ahead of their summer holiday, the health benefits are far less clear.

This is a wake-up call for them.

These are powerful medications with effects not just on appetite, but on lots of body organs, including the brain.

And pancreatitis is just one of many possible side effects.

Lilly, the UK manufacturer of Mounjaro, has said patient safety is its “top priority”.

The drug’s patient information leaflet “warns that inflamed pancreas (acute pancreatitis) is an uncommon side effect (which may affect up to 1 in 100 people),” the statement continued.

Lily “also advises patients to talk to their doctor or other healthcare professional before using Mounjaro if they have ever had pancreatitis,” it added.