"UK army chief: We’re ready to fight Putin in Eastern Europe"

Really?

From Politico.eu, November 21:

Rob Magowan told MPs the British Army ‘would fight tonight’ if asked amid rising tensions with Russia. 

Britain's armed forces would be ready to fight their Russian counterparts "tonight" if Vladimir Putin invades another Eastern European nation, a top U.K. military chief said Thursday.

"If the British Army was asked to fight tonight, it would fight tonight," Rob Magowan, the deputy chief of the British defense staff, told the House of Commons defense committee. "I don't think anybody in this room should be under any illusion that if the Russians invaded Eastern Europe tonight, then we would meet them in that fight."

The striking comments came as MPs asked Magowan Thursday how many British brigades could get to NATO's eastern flank in the event of a major escalation by Russia....

....MUCH MORE

Maybe he's right. The last time the countries* went all a-belli the Russian navy and army ended up barred from the Black Sea, despite incidents like:

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred....

—Alfred Lord Tennyson

*It was actually a proto-NATO vs. Russia: Ottomans, Britain, France, Sardinia.