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The UK must be prepared for a war with Russia that could break out by 2030, Kemi Badenoch has warned. She said Britain was already in the midst of a “hybrid” battle which could explode into open conflict. “Within the next four years, the UK could be at war with the world’s biggest nuclear armed state,” said the Conservative leader.

Setting out plans to boost defence spending by £10 billion annually, funded largely through welfare cuts, Mrs Badenoch said the best hope of keeping the peace was to show Russian dictator Vladimir Putin that the UK and NATO allies were capable of defending themselves. But warning that the nation has not woken up to the danger it faces, Mrs Badenoch said: “This is not the plot of a movie. This is real and it is happening now. And if things come to a head, all of our lives will be changed forever.”

Former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer revealed in June that British intelligence believes Russia could attack a NATO country as soon as 2030.

Article 5 of the NATO treaty states that an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against the entire alliance, meaning the UK would be obliged to come to the aid of any NATO country.

Moscow has stepped up rhetoric against the UK following reports that Ukraine used drones made by British firms to attack targets inside Russia. Asked this week whether Moscow might strike military facilities in the UK, President Vladimir Putin responded: “That’s a secret. A military secret.”

The Russians have also been accused of conducting a campaign of sabotage against European nations including the UK. Germany said Moscow was behind last month’s drone attack at Leipzig airport, and the Foreign Office yesterday summoned Russia’s charge d’affaires for a meeting to condemn the attack.

Russia has been blamed for a cyber-attack that shut down Jaguar Land Rover factories in the UK, costing an estimated £1.9 billion, and two men convicted of arson attacks on property linked to Sir Keir appear to have been recruited by Russian operatives.

Launching her defence plan, Mrs Badenoch contrasted her willingness to defend the UK with Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s failure to explain how he will achieve a goal of spending 3% of GDP on defence.

She said: “Being an island might make us feel safer, but it doesn’t prevent conflict from coming to us. And let’s be honest, conflict is coming. We must act now because the defence of the nation is the first duty of government.”

Britain’s allies are “getting ready for what’s to come,” she said, with Poland building an army of 300,000 people, three times the size of the British Army, while Germany has doubled defence spending in the last 5 years.

The Conservative plan includes saving £4 billion by reforming housing benefit, and a £3.1 billion through reimposing the two-child benefit cap.

A Tory government would seek to raise another £1 billion by ending VAT exemptions for Motability cars, and scrap the Chagos deal to save £200 million a year.

These measures would help fund an annual £10 billion increase in the defence budget, and allowing the UK to meet the 3% target by 2030.

But Mrs Badenoch claimed Prime Minister Andy Burnham was incapable of making “difficult trade-offs”, and was under pressure from Labour MPs to increase rather than cut welfare spending.

She said Mr Burnham should call a general election if he is not willing to act, adding: “The Prime Minister cannot defend us by capping bus fares.”

Labour Chancellor John Healey is expected to set out plans to spend 2.7% of GDP on defence in his Budget statement on October 28, with firm proposals to increase this to 3%, and eventually to meet a NATO target of 3.5%, coming in a future spending review.

But Labour former defence secretary John Hutton is among those warning that this may not be enough to deter Russia.

Lord Hutton, who served in the Cabinet under former prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, said: “Does the Ministry of Defence need an emergency injection of cash now, to deal with the growing security threat that Russia is posing ourselves and to our NATO allies? I think the overwhelming answer to that question is yes.”

He told Times Radio: “I don’t think President Putin is going to wait until the Treasury conducts its next Comprehensive Spending Review before he decides what his next course of action might be. He could make that decision imminently, and we’ve got to understand that.”

Responding to Mrs Badenoch’s proposals, a Labour Party spokesperson said: “Dodgy Tory economics won’t fund Britain’s defences. The British people won’t forget Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives hollowed out our armed forces and blew holes in the UK’s proud international reputation.

“This proposal uses the same money they’ve already spent on other things and appears to break the Tories’ so-called golden economic rule. This is just days after Kemi Badenoch promoted a key architect of the Liz Truss mini-Budget as her Shadow Chancellor. It’s the same old Tories – they haven’t listened and they haven’t learned.

“This Labour government is determined to give our armed forces the investment needed to keep us safe. In just two years, this Labour government has delivered the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War, with defence spending already higher than at any point during 14 years of Tory government.”

There were more splits within the Labour Party as Home Office Minister Anna Turley criticised backbencher Diane Abbott for claiming the threat from Russia had been made up by Nato.

Ms Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, criticised plans to hike defence spending and said on social media site X: “The imminent threat from Russia is a Nato fiction to justify their complete capitulation to Trump’s demands for more military spending. The increase should not go ahead.”

Ms Turley told Times Radio: “I completely disagree with Diane Abbott, I’m afraid. I think she’s wrong on this.”