In January I argued that alongside the moral imperative, British support for Ukraine bought us critical time to prepare for a future Russian attack – degrading Russia’s military while allowing the West to rearm and prepare.

That timeline was never unlimited. Now, events in Iran are beginning to compress it.

Three dynamics drive this shift. First, Russia is under less pressure. Second, the West is more constrained. And third, as Western deterrence becomes less credible, Putin is more likely to test it.

Let’s start with Russia, who is now under less financial pressure. An acute supply shortage driven by the Iran conflict has pushed oil prices sharply higher. As one of the world’s largest producers, Russia stands to benefit. In the first 12 days of the war alone, Russia raked in $150m a day in extra revenue from surging prices, according to the Financial Times.

Washington has also helped ease the pressure on Moscow, relaxing sanctions that had prevented others – like India – from buying Russian oil. This comes just as sanctions and the war began to bite: plans to cut 10 per cent of “non-essential” Russian spending have already been dropped. And there is no guarantee this relief will be short-lived: if the conflict endures, or Iran continues its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, higher prices will persist.

Russia also benefits in less direct ways. While fighting one war in Ukraine, it is studying another in the Middle East – observing Western doctrine, drone warfare, and air defence in action – and adapting accordingly. None of this transforms Russia’s position overnight, but it does ease the pressure that was constraining it.

At the same time, the West is becoming more limited. The US is now balancing multiple theatres with finite military resources. Hard choices over scarce interceptor missiles are already visible. When asked about sending equipment to Ukraine and whether it would be diverted to the Middle East, Secretary of State Marco Rubio put it bluntly: “If we need something for America… we’re going to keep it.”

There is also an economic constraint. The energy shock triggered by the conflict is hitting European economies hard – particularly the UK, predicted by the Oecd to be worst affected in the G20 – weakening growth and making sustained increases in defence spending more politically difficult.

Political cohesion is also weakening. Divisions between Washington and European allies have widened, with European governments unwilling to support what many see as a war of choice in Iran. In response, Donald Trump has openly questioned whether the US would honour its commitments to European defence (“based on [European] actions, I guess we don’t have to”).

In private, European officials now consider a worse scenario: not American absence from its allies, but a deal between the US and Russia actively working against European interests. As uncertainty over Nato’s unity grows, its deterrent effect weakens – and with it, its ability to limit Russia’s behaviour.

Putin does not need to believe the West is decisively weakened or that it is overwhelmingly stronger to act. He only needs to believe that the trajectory is moving in his favour, that Western resolve is uncertain, and that there is an opportunity to test it.

That is where the third dynamic comes into play: Russia’s perception of opportunity widens. As a result, Putin may calculate that the window to test and exploit the West’s weakness is sooner than previously assumed.

As Mark Galeotti writes in The Times, Putin is less a lion shaping events than a jackal exploiting them. He cannot control the conflict in the Middle East, but he can make the most of its consequences.

In that context, he is incentivised to test the West – probing Nato through cyber-attacks, covert operations, and other forms of “grey-zone” activity. Where Nato fails to respond decisively, deterrence is further eroded – encouraging yet more bold moves.

These dynamics do not make Russia suddenly ready for a wider war, but they do change the trajectory – easing pressure on Moscow while complicating Western rearmament. For Britain, the implication is simple: less time.

The UK had assumed it could make difficult choices gradually. The PM’s “ambition” to increase defence spending to 3 per cent in the next Parliament “as economic and fiscal conditions allow” suggests a pace that may be too slow, even as senior military and intelligence officials warn that Russia could pose a direct challenge to Nato by the end of the decade.

If the timeline is compressing, Britain has less time to rebuild a small military optimised for short interventions into one capable of sustained conflict, reorient a service-based economy towards defence production at scale, and build public consent for higher spending and lower consumption.

These are not small adjustments, they are structural choices and come with real trade-offs: higher defence spending or higher taxes (or less on public services); efficiency through globalisation or resilience through domestic capacity; political comfort or war readiness.

Those choices were always coming, the question now is whether they must be made faster and under greater pressure than we expected.

Ukraine is still buying us time, but that won’t last forever. The risk is not that Russia is suddenly ready. It is that the margin for Western delay has narrowed – and with it, the room to avoid hard choices.

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