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Britain’s Armed Forces is short of more than 5,000 regular troops, according to latest government figures.

Tory-led defence cuts have led to a shortfall in soldiers, sailors and airmen against an increasing terror risk from Islamic State and Cold War threats from Russia.

New Armed Forces figures show how the number of regular trained troops ready to defend the UK is now 141,260 - against a required number of 147, 130.

MoD papers call the difference between the two figures of 5,870 “... one indicator of the Service’s ability to execute military tasks.”

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Earlier this year The Daily Mirror revealed the MoD’s chaos-hit recruitment programme has led to a shortfall of Army soldiers of 2,000.

(Image: Getty)

The private firm tasked with recruitment Capita has paid millions of pounds in penalties to the MoD in fines for failing to meet targets.

In one month alone it had to stump up £750,000 for failing to meet targets, our investigation proved.

Last year The Mirror revealed how hundreds of recruits were turned away on day one of training as their medical files had not turned up.

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Leaked documents showed how millions of pounds had been wasted since Capita began running the recruitment campaign.

Today the MoD put a positive spin on the latest manning levels for the Army, Navy and RAF.

The long-term plan for the Armed Forces is that the shortfall left by repeated Tory cuts in numbers will be filled by an expansion of the numbers in our reserve forces.

(Image: PA)

Julian Brazier, Minister for Reserves, said: “As an integral part of our world class Armed Forces, Reservists have served on operations right around the world; from countering Daesh in Iraq and Syria and service on counter piracy operations in the Indian Ocean, to assisting in flood relief in the UK.

“By continuing to offer a challenging and rewarding experience, we are seeing a constant and steady stream of recruits through the door with over 8,500 people joining the Reserves over the last 12 months, and our trained strength is up by 2,720 (11.4%) compared to last year, at 26,640.

“We are also improving our engagement with employers, working in partnership to give them the help they need and show them that, in turn, their Reservists can give a lot back to businesses too.”

An MOD Spokesperson said: "The Armed Forces have enough people to perform all its tasks to keep Britain safe"