LONDON — The British Ministry of Defence has confirmed it will cut troop numbers from 82,000 to 73,000 by 2025 — despite opposition from parts of the armed forces and the Labour party.

The cuts, included in an updated defense command paper published Tuesday, will allow the government to save about £5 billion, and mean the army will employ 28 percent fewer troops by 2025 than the 102,000 it did in 2010, when the Conservatives took office.

Unveiling the plan, Ben Wallace — who will step down from government in the next Cabinet reshuffle — argued that the Ukrainian war has shown a relatively small force can be highly effective if it is properly equipped and trained.

And in a bid to make a career in the military more attractive, the ministry will introduce a “zig-zagging” policy allowing members of the armed forces to take up jobs in the public sector and industry, and then return to their military career later. The forces are also making a push to recruit female and minority ethnic candidates, the government said.

​​​​​But the decision has been criticized by Labour. Shadow Defense Secretary John Healey told POLITICO in March that the Conservative government risked putting “cost above all else.”​​

The MoD also confirmed that £2.5 billion, already committed in the U.K.’s autumn statement, will be spent over the next decade to replenish Britain’s depleted stockpiles of ammunition, with a further £400 million funding repairs to crumbling service accommodation.

WashingtonCNN — The US and Europe are struggling to provide Ukraine with the large amount of ammunition it will need for a prolonged counteroffensive against Russia, and Western officials are racing to ramp up production to avoid shortages on the battlefield that could hinder Ukraine’s progress.

The dwindling supply of artillery ammunition has served as a wake-up call to NATO, US and Western officials told CNN, since the alliance did not adequately prepare for the possibility of a protracted land war in Europe following decades of relative peace.

UK Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace told CNN last week that while NATO was poised early on for a “night one, day one” offensive, “no one had really asked themselves the question, well, what if ‘day one, night one’ becomes ‘week two, week three, week four?’ How much of our exquisite capabilities have we actually got in stock? And I think that’s been the broader question.”

US officials emphasized to CNN that there is a set level of munitions in US stockpiles around the world, essentially an emergency reserve, that the military is not willing to part ways with. The levels of those stockpiles are classified.

But officials say the US has been nearing that red line as it has continued to supply Ukraine with 155mm ammunition, the NATO standard used for artillery rounds. The US began ramping up ammunition production last year when it became clear that the war would drag on far longer than anticipated. But the ammunition will still take “years” to mass produce to acceptable levels, National Security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN Sunday.

Nebraska Republican Sen. Deb Fischer, a member of Senate’s Armed Services and Appropriations Committees, told CNN, “I think members of the military had to be concerned from the get-go on this.”

Using the example of a Lockheed Martin production line for Javelin anti-armor missiles that could produce 2,100 missiles a year while Ukraine was using 500 of the missiles a day, Fischer said, “That’s a red flag right there.”

Fischer is pushing for a greater investment in arms manufacturing to meet the challenge of a belligerent Russia in Europe and a Chinese military asserting its presence in the Pacific.

“It’s serious stuff. I’m not out there saying the sky is falling, but we need to be focused on this,” said Fischer. “We can’t lose the focus, and we need to be able to ramp up production

We meet Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi at a secret location beside the command vehicle he uses to visit his troops and keep an eye on the battle. On top is a powerful machine gun. Inside, a large screen displays multiple live video feeds of the battlefield from hundreds of drones.

Look up Gen Syrskyi online and you will see him described as "the most successful general of the 21st Century so far".

It's a lot to live up to.

He led the defence of Kyiv at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. He was the mastermind behind Ukraine's surprise and successful counter-attack in Kharkiv last summer. Now, he's head of military operations in eastern Ukraine - one of the two main axes in Ukraine's counter-offensive.

We watch a feed of the heavily shell-scarred fields around Bakhmut, where some of his troops are trying to take back ground. I ask him if it's his goal to recapture the city? He smiles and says: "Yes, of course. I try to do it."

But even he admits that, more than a month since it started, Ukraine's long-awaited offensive on multiple fronts is going slower than many had hoped.

He says in the east, just like the south, the area is saturated with mines and defensive barriers. The Russians, he says, have many strongholds: "Therefore, our advances are really not going as fast as we would like."