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The following programme contains strong language

and scenes which some viewers may find distressing.

HMS Loughborough has been hit by a torpedo

from a Russian submarine.

That Russian submarine has committed an act of war.

We cannot retaliate in anger.

Doing nothing in... in my opinion isn't an option.

Find the submarine ASAP.

The Russians are alleging

that we have provoked them into an escalation of war.

I need you to keep your powder dry.

We are isolated from the US.

To all intents and purposes, NATO as a functioning alliance

is dead in the water right now.

We are facing a sustained assault on our way of life.

Sink the submarine, do it now.

Weapon away.

The target has been destroyed, sir.

We must prepare for Russia to hit back.

We currently have one operating air defence destroyer.

Just one vessel.

It's currently covering Faslane.

Many major cities and towns will be at risk.

This is a life-and-death decision.

Daddy!

Radar alert. Cruise missile picked up.

Heading towards Portsmouth.

OK, more live pictures coming through.

Impact. Impact.

Impact. Flyingdales.

An additional cruise missile.

And another. And another.

Intercepted.

CDS. There is a massive combination

of ballistic missile and cruise missile attack on the UK mainland.

Richard, this is the moment that we anticipated and feared.

Can you tell us what we're doing to protect the country?

The RAF have been intercepting the cruise missiles,

but certainly not all of them.

Sir, you have 36 Typhoons for close air support,

but obviously they're not getting everything.

Two active missiles heading towards the Thames.

Impact. Impact.

God! Oh... my goodness!

We must be absolutely sure that we're now dealing

with mass casualties.

The level of shock is gonna be really unbelievable.

We know we are in a rapidly developing situation.

A state of emergency has been declared. Airspace has been closed.

The emergency services are responding,

um, and the Home Secretary and I will continue to make sure

that the entirety of government are doing everything

that they need to do.

OK, looks like 36 total.

12 got through. We intercepted the rest.

If you can just verify with all those targets

whether they're act- what... what the situation is

on the ground and casualties.

- Yeah. - Roger.

We need to let CDS know.

What the fuck is happening?

Jesus Christ!

Severe alert.

That's got to be a joke.

They literally text my phone saying the United Kingdom

is under sustained bombing attack.

Now, this is actually getting fucking scary.

Prime Minister, we, uh... have a clearer picture

of the damage inflicted on the UK by these missile strikes.

The targets have been RAF bases,

Royal Navy bases, and London-based intelligence agencies.

So, all within the bracket of military targets.

But as we've just seen,

a residential block in Milbank has also been struck.

This is adjacent to the Security Service building.

92 casualties reported.

I imagine they are all civilian.

So far, we are aware of a total of 38 deaths

and 231 further casualties reported.

Horrendous.

Every one of us will be moved by this tragedy,

but the reason that we are in this room

is that we have responsibilities to discharge.

It's clear that the Russians have

targeted primarily military targets,

but without any consideration of our civilian population.

We need to make sure that the civilian casualties

and their families receive all the support that we possibly can.

DPM?Uh, Prime Minister, thank you. I mean, obviously,

devastating news. We took a decision earlier today

to defend Faslane and airbases in the UK.

Uh, other sites have been attacked.

Does that mean we have taken the wrong decision?

Protecting our nuclear deterrent capability

was the right thing to do.

And the airbases...

Well, the RAF intercepted 20 missiles.

If I don't protect those airfields,

then the aircraft can't function and we have no air defence.

So, the decision was sound in terms of military priorities,

but it has led to an extraordinary loss of life.

So, CDS, we need to know

how compromised our defence capabilities are

by this attack and how we can respond.

Absolutely. And we also need to reset the air defence of the UK.

We must assume there's a second wave coming.

We know Russia likes to do a double tap.

It likes to hit emergency responders

who have rushed to a particular scene,

so we just need to bear that in mind.

Our priority needs to be to protect the UK,

but this also needs, uh, retaliation.

Surely now the United States will come to our aid.

But, Foreign Secretary, there are no certainties here.

The Russians are actively lobbying

for the international isolation of the UK.

They put out a public statement claiming

that they're acting in self-defence.

Uh, I think it's absolutely urgent that we consider the scale and nature

of our response, diplomatic and military.

But the first and most important thing is

to make sure that we've secured the safety of the public overall.

Prime Minister, this is a serious military crisis,

but I think we are all aware it will affect every aspect

of domestic life in the UK.

People in this country, they've never seen anything like this.

- No. - And the questions will come. - What should we be doing?

We've mobilised voluntary resources, private sector resources.

We've cancelled police leave.

We must give the public clear information and advice.

We have a government-prepared website.

We should direct people to that.

The emergency alert system has been activated

and we have sent a message out to people to stay inside,

but we do need to furnish people with more practical advice

in terms of what might come next,

because people are so frightened out there.

Ayesha, as Director of Communications,

I want you to get out there, I want you to take control.

Understood.

I just jumped out of my skin because that alert went off on my phone,

and it says Britain's under attack,

and that you could be in a dangerous area.

And then I saw that stuff in the sky and...

Oh, my God, I'm just getting into such a panic.

We just have to sit here and pray nothing happens to us

whilst these guys are potentially gonna drop bombs on our heads

and we're just sitting here. No hope, no nothing.

Russia has attacked the UK in a wave of deadly missile strikes.

At least 31 civilians and 11 military personnel have been killed.

A block of flats was among the sites struck in London

in scenes reminiscent of The Blitz.

Military bases across England and Scotland

were also targeted in what Russia has claimed to be an act of self-defence.

Emergency services are responding.

Members of the public are trying to help with rescue efforts,

in defiance of the government's stay-at-home orders.

These orders remain in place.

We're actually gonna have to advise people.

If they ask, "Are we safe in London, or we've got...

Should we go and stay with our relatives in the countryside?"

or something like that. So, basically,

people will start voting with their feet.

Hello, Government Press Office.

Please do avoid unnecessary travel.

The Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Secretary

are wanting to get some information out to the public

because they're gonna want to know, is food supply gonna be affected?

Is fuel supply going to be affected?

Water, you know, our critical infrastructure.

Reassurance is going to be absolutely critical,

but we also have to do some work in terms of shoring up messages

to stay inside, stay at home.

OK, so we're urging people not to do any unnecessary travel, right?

- Yes. - We advise the public to stayat home and shelter in place

if it is safe to do so. If further instances occur,

guidance will be issued immediately

- through official government channels. - Yeah, yeah, great.

Thank you.

I think the main effort at the moment

has to be deterring future action.

My concern is our lack of conventional capability.

Look, if there was any hope that us sinking that submarine

was gonna draw a line in the sand, then that's gone.

- Yep. - We are at war with Russiaas of now.

And as of now, we are on our own.

What can we do?

I believe that the Russians want to demonstrate weakness in NATO.

If we can get NATO and European allies to rally,

then I think that Russia will draw back.

If you have to impress upon people,

if the United Kingdom is allowed to go down at Russia's hand,

then Europe is next.

Yes. Calls are underway to our allies as we speak.

We have to make our fate their struggle.

And it is a race against time

in order to ensure that we can get them to support us,

or Russia will draw the appropriate lesson

that it can strike anywhere,

anytime, and again, against us.

One of Russia's motives is that it wants to isolate

and humiliate Britain because we're such a strong support of Ukraine,

um, both militarily and intelligence-wise.

But it would never just be about Ukraine.

We both know that one of Russia's key objectives

has been about reversing NATO's expansion

since the end of the Cold War.

Russia struck us with these 36 missiles.

So, I need to go back to the Prime Minister

and be quite clear what we nationally

are still capable of doing, how we could strike

Russian military targets in and out of Russia.

And I'm open to all sorts of suggestions there.

But their ability to hurt us is obviously considerably greater

than our ability to hurt them.

So, the government must really press hard for this

to be the NATO fight it should always have been.

Of course it's Article 5 territory.

- Yes. - And they shouldn't be neutralanymore, and it's ridiculous.

Secretary of State. When we last spoke,

the president didn't want to get involved.

But now, we are in a very different place.

And that is why we're asking you

to make sure that NATO and the West can stand united.

Well, listen, before anything else,

on behalf of the nation, uh, I...

You have our condolences for the loss of life.

And I understand the tension

around the political aspect of this as well.

Uh... but what I'm not gonna give you

is a message about greenlighting Article 5.

Russia has bombed our capital city.

And, and... and things are left like that. That's a Russian victory.

And the consequences of that for all of our allies,

including the United States of America, are grave.

I think politically, in your mind, it's a Russian victory.

But if we can stomach a de-escalation here,

which I am roundly recommending that we do,

we can work with the Russians,

uh, to de-escalate what is going on.

Speaking from a global perspective,

the best strategy here

is to eat a little crow, frankly.

Is that the advice of the United States to the United Kingdom?

What is your peace plan? How do we de-escalate?

You have to accept your middle power status,

whether you like it or not.

And if Russia doesn't de-escalate...

if Russia's scent of weakness is so strong now

that it doesn't de-escalate, what then?

My bet is that they will.

But I think it's important to understand

where the president is on this stuff.

He has said that, uh,

countries that aren't living up to the obligation

in terms of their percentage of the GDP

that they're expending as part of the NATO treaty,

uh, he doesn't feel obligated to want to defend.

The United Kingdom does not have the military power

to stand up to Russia.

And that would be the case no matter how much...

what percentage of our GDP we spend on defence.

That's the reality.

But Europe has 400 million people.

It's some of the richest economies on the earth.

You guys can't be calling Washington

every time there's a problem in Europe.

And so, at some point,

Europe is gonna have to defend itself.

What the fuck is that?

Prime Minister, this is...

a new and... and very difficult development.

There have been, uh, an attack

from 40 first-person view drones.

So, drones piloted by somebody,

launched from within the UK.

We are under attack within our own country.

The 40 drones - and that's an estimate -

we know have hit the following targets.

The critical data centre in Stockport,

the Trafford substation that powers GCHQ North,

the northern centre of our national cybersecurity,

and 66,000 homes.

In a second attack on Portsmouth,

they bombed a valuable fuel depot

that supplies the military there.

It's caused a huge fire,

meaning residential areas nearby are being evacuated.

Fortunately, there were no casualties.

What the Russians do with these attacks

on critical national infrastructure

is intended to cause maximum disruption to civilian lives

as well as to the military,

and they will just keep pushing and keep testing us.

Do we know anything about the capability

of, uh, these drones?

Police have already tracked down one of the sources.

It looks like they were launched from lorries,

and what's troubling is that the drones will probably

have been modified inside the UK.

Just demonstrate, should there be any doubt...

quite how long planned

and sophisticated and extensive this Russian operation is.

This is not something that has been dreamed up in a week or so.

This is something that involves months and months of planning.

If that's true, why have we missed this?

If we have 40 operative flying drones inside our territory

and it's been planned for months,

where have we been?

With respect, Foreign Secretary, we're not talking about

40 operative-I don't need respect, I just need an answer.

We're talking about 40 drones having been launched.

That could be as little as three or four operatives.

Chris Steele, nobody has a better understanding of the Russian mind

and what we may be up against.

Well, we're not clear, Prime Minister,

whether this is Russian operatives coming into the UK

or sleeper cells that have been in the UK for years,

or it's organised crime elements

that have been hired to do this specifically.

But we need to be able to move against them

as a matter of urgency

in case there are further attacks on critical national infrastructure

of that sort.

I want these people found.

The most important thing

is that the police resources are being mobilised to keep people safe.

But Prime Minister, we have to retaliate for...

for this to get Russia to stand down.

If we don't, the bombs will keep coming.

I agree.

The only thing I think in conscience that we can do

is to strike back and to say that we're determined

to uphold Western values even if others are not.

Prime Minister...

this is not tenable.

The UK alone cannot win this war by military means.

Every time we tap Russia on the nose,

they are going to punch us in the face.

So, while we plan our response,

it is really important that we act with calm heads.

I take your point, Nicola...

...but this cannot go unanswered.

Uh, Prime Minister, I think whatever happens,

it's absolutely imperative

that you get in front of the public as soon as possible.

There is a huge amount of panic.

Many don't have confidence

that we as a country are in a position

to adequately defend ourselves and defend them as citizens.

Hello, Press Office.

A major collision on the M25.

OK, huge evacuations, people driving up

the wrong side of the motorway even. I'm getting quite nervous.

Russia has attacked the UK with drones in a second round of strikes.

Emergency teams are responding,

and we have no word yet on further casualties.

The crisis is prompting a run on supermarkets

with people trying to stockpile food.

There is also evidence of people fleeing major cities

despite government advice to stay at home.

Every shop has been ransacked.

I literally got the last toilet paper.

But, like, bro, are you not making it worse for everyone?

Like, if everyone just stops panicking, buying everything,

rushing out of London, it's, like, at the same time.

I'm gonna have to get out of the car and show you this, guys,

because this is absolutely mental.

Look at all that traffic coming out of London.

We can't even get on the roundabout.

The roads are chock-a-block. The car parks are chock-a-block.

I don't know how the hell we're gonna get out of here.

Confronted by such an unprecedented attack,

the Prime Minister is set to address the nation.

Oh, look, Gove's on TV now.

Good morning.

In the last few hours,

Russia has carried out a series of targeted attacks

across the United Kingdom.

We are at war.

Oh, my God.

I know that many of you

will be deeply concerned by today's events.

But I must ask you to listen to official advice

in order to ensure that we can keep people safe.

The most important contribution that you can make

is to remain where you are, with your loved ones,

and leave the roads free for the emergency services.

If the government told you to jump off a cliff, are you gonna do it?

We're now being told you've got to hunker down in your home.

You think I want to be stuck with my mum and my dad?

But as I speak, our armed forces,

the security services are enabling us to keep this country safe.

We will show that our democracy cannot be defeated.

The question about whether we're at war, that's not a question anymore.

It's happened.

We got three boys of fighting age.

And they'll obviously be talking about conscription

before long we've been... we've been fired on. I don't know.

It's not fair. It's not fair on the youngest generation.

It's not fair on the oldest generation. It's a disgrace.

If we don't respond, then it will just get worse.

This is the way they are. They will not stop

until they feel, uh...

sort of brick... a brick wall.

There's the old Leninist dictum,

which is if you push the bayonet in and you encounter mush, push on.

If you encounter steel, withdraw. Yes, yes.

Do you think that still holds? Yes, very much so.

There's been times in there where I've... I've struggled to hold back

my anger. We can't allow ourselves to be bullied by Russia, obviously,

and I think we all want to show strength,

but on our own,

we are leading our country to defeat like lambs to the slaughter.

There's almost a sense around that table of some people

kind of itching for war.

You and I, you know, might see our colleagues as trigger-happy.

They'll be saying to us,

well, we just warned you that...

lack of diff- of conventional forces

would end us in exactly this situation.

We've had other priorities, haven't we, on the centre and on the left.

You know, it's been like butter, not guns.

Yeah. Which is an admirable tradition.

That is an argument for us to be having internally.

But with the public,

we've just got to use our influence

that we've got to back the government up.

Look... You know, the worst thing we can have right now

is a... a divided government in the face of...

Exactly... of Kremlin aggression.

And there are no good options.

But without the support of our allies,

we are engaged in a battle of strength.

That we know we can't win,

because we're gonna run out of ammunition before they do.

Ange, of course, you and I are gonna keep recording

for as long as we can during this crisis,

but it doesn't feel like the government has

any good options right now.

This wasn't a conflict of our choosing,

and on our own, we don't have the means

to fully defend ourselves from any further attacks,

and that will be clear to Russia.

These ministers want to tip the scales in our favour somehow.

They're going to need to rally our allies fast.

Thank you, colleagues.

Given the gravity of the situation,

given the United States is still,

at this point, not coming to our support,

I wanted to run through

the military options that are available to us.

CDS?

So, Prime Minister, these are concrete things

you could choose to do.

The first option is to strike Kaliningrad,

a Russian enclave separated from mainland Russia.

We would intend to target the headquarters of the Baltic fleet,

and then we've located one S-400 air defence system.

To do that, we would need to deploy

between eight to twelve aircraft,

- and you need to assume they're not all coming back. - Mm-hmm.

The second option - and it's my preferred option...

Yep... is to strike two targets concurrently,

Kaliningrad and Murmansk, deep inside Russia.

In Murmansk, we would hit a radar station,

an air base, and aspects of a naval base.

We could repeat that

every 24 or 48 hours in terms of scale...

Yep... but you'll... you'll recognise

we'll be depleting our aircraft, we'll take losses,

and we'll be depleting our missile stocks,

and we'll also be defending the UK.

It's the same aeroplanes that... that do this.

The point I need to register with you,

if we do this sort of thing and repeat it,

we think within about two weeks -

it's not a perfect science -

we'll be out of aircraft and we'll be out of missile.

Prime Minister, I really fear we are about to enter a death spiral

without the support of our allies.

Within two weeks, as we've just heard, we will be dead.

If we remain alone,

the UK is not going to survive,

and that is the battle we are in. It's for the survival of the UK,

for democracy and our freedom.

You need to get on the phone to NATO.

We need to find out who our European friends are

and what support they can give us.

Hello, Secretary General.

I'm really grateful, Secretary General, to you for making the time.

If we don't have American support,

the key thing that I have to ask you

is what can be done

to have the rest of NATO behind us?

NATO as a whole,

uh, cannot be engaged

unless things change, uh, in Washington.

The reality is that NATO operates by consensus,

and at the moment there isn't a consensus.

Um... but I can assure you

that the other allies are looking at ways

in which the United Kingdom can be helped.

And I hope that we might be able to get

a gathering of friendly nations

separate from NATO

in order to help the United Kingdom at this time.

But they... they know the stakes.

The stakes are very, very high.

That idea of a coalition of the willing and the capable...

...while not as significant as NATO itself,

will provide us with some support.

I'm using every diplomatic means at my disposal

in order to get the message over about how important this is.

We'll do whatever it takes

in order to ensure that we get that support.

We had a long conversation with the Sec Gen,

provided us with a glimmer of hope.

He encouraged us to look for a coalition of the willing,

who will come to our aid immediately and urgently.

Surely, surely now,

um, European allies that realise they're next

can be brought into the fight.

And for example,

were the Scandinavian countries to come into the fight,

they have a pool of about 230 very good fast jet aircraft.

We need Russia to have a reason

to be worried about what we're going to do next.

Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia,

they will be very critical.

Denmark can help to increase maritime policing in the North Sea.

Poland have the HIMARS system,

which is a long-range, uh, missile system.

And you can see how that would massively change

the risk calculus for Russia.

So, the Defence Secretary and I,

we're talking to these countries

to cobble together a coalition of willing.

We're just getting word that the Foreign Secretary,

Jim Murphy, is in private talks with European counterparts.

Whilst no further information has been released,

sources suggest that the government

is looking to build a European coalition of the willing.

If America's not gonna back us,

a lot of our NATO allies are not gonna back us,

we need to get Europe to start to feel

that actually this is their war as much as anybody else.

I think what Russia wants to prove is that...

they can attack a NATO member state and get away with it.

Now's a perfect time to strike because America's disinterested

and Europe as a whole is under-invested in its defence.

And if it works well in the UK...

Yeah... and we get completely smashed...

Yeah... then none of you are safe. Yeah.

Prime Minister. Well, I... I have news.

This is from Estonia.

And they're going to do a public declaration of support for the UK.

- Very good news. - Absolutely.

So now we've got, uh, Denmark...

...and we've got the Netherlands as well.

Norway, of course,

a nation which has come under sustained attacks from Russia.

Its critical national infrastructure, water supplies,

a dam attacked.

It's not a surprise to me

that, uh, they would want to help and support us.

So, it's excellent that we've got this solidarity,

but their resources are limited.

So, we need critically to have the rest of Europe behind us.

It's good those nations are out the traps

because that will give confidence to others to... to follow.

I couldn't agree more.

Oh, gosh. What?

Have you seen what's coming?

Russia broadcasting live now.

Despite clear warnings used by Moscow,

Britain is attempting to draw European nations

into direct conflict with Russia.

The Kremlin warns that London's actions

are pushing the continent towards a full-scale European war.

And the president has sent the British government

non-negotiable terms to end this conflict.

We've received an ultimatum from the Russians.

Their terms are...

NATO allies stop helping us,

and that we all resign as a Cabinet.

I think we should distribute a copy to our Cabinet colleagues

for display in their downstairs loo.

I'm perfectly prepared

to do whatever is necessary to save this country.

But no one changes the government

of this country other than the British people.

You know, we're... we're not a client state of the Kremlin,

and we never, ever should be.

This is another attempt to paint us as the aggressor.

We have to ramp up the argument again

that we are doing nothing more than retaliation,

that we are stepping up our diplomacy with our allies,

and we're also looking to Russia to de-escalate.

What they are seeking to do

is to divide public opinion in this country,

divide this government, but more importantly,

divide us from our allies and sow division within our allies.

We have a short period now

to show that we are not gonna be blackmailed.

In the last few hours,

a surge in false and misleading information

is spreading rapidly across social media.

Security sources say they suspect the Kremlin

is conducting a disinformation operation

across multiple social media platforms

to spread false claims

that Russia is the victim of UK aggression.

They attack Russia... One source says that dozens

of online accounts have been traced to a troll farm

linked to the Russian state.

They caused this mess.

The government should resign.

Russia isn't the enemy everyone keeps telling you it is.

Just stop and question what we're being told.

There's already a lot of misinformation circulating

on social media that somehow we were the aggressors,

that somehow that we've instigated this.

I think we should put a statement out right now just saying this is...

this is a deep fake.

Resign and this will be over.

People clearly don't want this war.

We know that misinformation is a deliberate tactic.

And it's part of the Russian playbook.

It's to cause division, turn people against each other

and turn people against the state.

There are some people on there talking about protests.

Quite a lot of people are talking about wanting to join in.

In the last few hours, shocking scenes have unfolded

across the country where protests calling for the government

to step down have turned violent.

As police and emergency services struggle to contain the unrest,

officials are urging the public to rely only on verified information.

We've got a great deal of unease.

We've got internal disorder.

We've got people whose views have been twisted

by misinformation from social media,

um, emanating from Russia.

I think we should take powers under the Civil Contingencies Act

to ban social media.

We have been trying to tackle social media for such a long time.

We are not in a very short space of time, just gonna be like,

"Here's a lever we can pull to wipe out

all the bad bits of social media." Social media is also gonna be

really important for people who are frightened and want to connect

- with people. - Because if weban social media,

then in every other country that wants to undermine us,

their social media feeds would be full of

"the United Kingdom governments taking away your rights."Correct.

"And liberties," and people here would see that.

I think there would be a big pushback

that we were somehow moving into what would be described

as a kind of an authoritarian state.

But this... this is getting really bad really quickly.

Prime Minister, I have an update.

We have some new intelligence in...

which suggests that a Russian national

is in contact with British political figures

and is talking to them about positions in a future UK government.

We have reason to believe that we may be in the early stages

of a coup,

and that Russia has organised and paid

for an alternative government to remove us.

You have politicians in this country

working with a regime that is responsible for civilian deaths

because they're looking for money and power.

We saw that in Ukraine, obviously, in 2021, 2022.

This is part of their playbook.

I'm getting some pretty interesting questions from the A.G.

Oh, really? About what?

Can you share? Arresting politicians

for collaborating with the Russians.

- UK politicians? - Yeah.

She didn't say who, but if they could, which they can.

There's the National Security Act

you can use for just assisting a foreign power to undermine the UK.

I'd like to suggest that we take immediate countermeasures,

including securing TV studios,

including Sky, the BBC and others,

protecting transport hubs.

The steps you put forward would be

a remarkable exercise of state control

and containment of civil liberty.

Prime Minister, can I also just interject here?

This is an appalling moment, Prime Minister,

for our country, but I just want to exercise caution.

What makes us Britain are our values.

And if we give up on them,

then we're doing the job of the enemy for them.

UK is under attack from out with and from within.

This is as much a part of the Russians' war play

as sinking a... a ship is.

It's entirely, you know, designed to divide, confuse, sidetrack us,

but we really need to be careful

we don't allow ourselves to be dragged down.

I couldn't agree more.

I think the main effort for us now is to focus on what we do next,

how we protect the UK, how we retaliate.

I've been on social media so much,

and I've seen so much stuff

and I've got to stop looking at it.

I'm gonna try and just get my head down and get a few hours' sleep,

and then see what's happening in the morning.

It's gone from being peaceful to literally, uh...

an all-out conflict within days.

Um... I'm really, really worried.

I'm concerned for my children, my grandchildren.

Bro... Like, what does this mean for normal people?

Genuinely, how are people gonna live like this, bro?

There's not supposed to be a World War III,

especially in my lifetime.

Ange, I mean, this is really developing into something

none of us have seen in our lifetimes, isn't it?

My goodness, Tom, it really is.

The whole country is basically on a war footing now.

All reservists are being mobilised.

The NHS needs blood donors urgently

and is clearing beds in case of more mass casualties.

All the schools are shut.

These are extraordinary measures by any standard.

Of course, you know, all anybody's thinking about right now

is what will the night bring. None of us know.

Should we be braced for another series of attacks?

The only silver lining is coming from European allies.

Well, let's hope that that changes Russia's calculations...

Let's cut to the heart of where we are now.

Prime Minister, we... we have a lot more support,

uh, that is now stood up,

in addition to the four nations that, uh, we already had,

we now have the rest of the Nordic and Baltic nations,

and Ukraine, and Poland.

Ukraine has said that it will provide close coordination

for deep strike operations.

Poland has offered support and will consider

a request to use its long-range HIMAR missile system.

The update that the Defence Secretary has given us

is really reassuring.

- Yeah. - Very good news.

I think everyone agrees...

we need to move to the point of decision.

Our values are under attack as they have not been before for decades.

- Yes. - How we respond will determine

not just the security of this country,

but the future of the West.

If we're coming to make a decision on the level

of our response, it's a...

it's a different decision if we are confident

that our European allies

are prepared to press some buttons, which...

which invites retaliation against their own civilian populations.

Do we think that actually these promises are real?

Yes, I do.

My concern about any of the options when we were on our own is that,

you know, we run out of options within a very short timescale.

I think the Defence Secretary's update

potentially changes that calculus.

Uh, I think it's absolutely urgent now that we consider

the scale of our response.

Option one means striking Kaliningrad...

...the enclave outside of the Russian mainland.

It's one of Russia's most heavily militarised territories.

Option two is a simultaneous attack on Murmansk,

the Russian northern fleet base.

This would be an audacious deep strike inside Russia

that they haven't faced before.

My recommendation is to hit Kaliningrad and Murmansk

at the same time in order to, uh, put pressure on...

on Russia and to deliver the short, sharp shock

to bring this thing to a close.

I would go for option one and keep Murmansk option back a bit

to see what the Russian response is.

That's a kind of minimalist option.

I agree with the National Security Adviser.

Attacking Murmansk would be a step up from attacking Kaliningrad.

I think we should definitely go for option one.

A minimalist response.

The risk in that attack is it may be seen as a sign of weakness.

I think that is the wrong tactic.

It's the wrong way of doing it. We need to show resolve.

We're not in a penalty shootout here.

We need to get out of the tit-for-tat battle rhythm.

That is what Russia wants.

Ultimately, I believe Russia is going to continue to attack us.

And so, I think we should take this action.

Option two.

Look, on the basis of...

the Russian murder of our people,

the vile propaganda we have heard

from its so-called president,

and the full-frontal attack on our democracy...

I support, albeit reluctantly,

the recommendation of the Chief of the Defence Staff

and the Defence Secretary.

But, Prime Minister, we must be under no illusion

that Russia could strike back against us with even greater force.

In terms of actual response from Russia,

I don't think we can predict what it will be.

I detect there was a consensus on Kaliningrad...

Mm-hmm. ...which we should do that.

The question I'm less certain on

is whether we can currently attack Murmansk.

They couldn't have made it any clearer

the contempt in which they hold us,

and therefore, it couldn't be any clearer about how we must respond.

In the absence of any peace process,

in the absence of any mediation,

I want to make sure

that we hit them with all of the force we can.

I want them humiliated. I want them knocked off balance.

I want them not to know where they're going to turn next.

So... CDS, on that basis,

you have my and the Cabinet's authorisation

to strike both Kaliningrad and Murmansk.

Thank you, Prime Minister.

We will do it now.

Weapon away. 20 seconds.

The attack on Russian targets was successful.

Independent journalists report heavy casualties.

Of course they will respond.

An Oreshnik missile has been launched.

We do not know whether this missile

has a conventional or a nuclear warhead.

Jesus. Oh, my God.

What is the time between launch and impact?

22 minutes.

We have to show the Russians

we are prepared to launch a nuclear missile.

- We can't. - No, we can.

We're talking about using weapons of mass destruction.

I'd like to hear from our legal adviser.

I will not sacrifice the law because we become gung-ho in a bunker.

Prime Minister, if there is a missile hurtling towards

this country, what are you suggesting?

Prime Minister...

it's for you to decide.

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