The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has failed to maintain contact details for the majority of the roughly 95,000 former soldiers and officers held in the country's strategic reserve — a pool of veterans legally obligated to return to service in a national emergency. The admission came from George Robertson, a former defence secretary and ex-NATO chief who co-authored last year's Strategic Defence Review, who said the MoD "doesn't even know where most of them are." Records are understood to have lapsed for veterans who left full-time service more than six years ago, a practice that fell away after the Cold War ended. The gap is seen as a serious vulnerability at a time when NATO leaders, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer, have warned that Russia could be ready to attack the alliance within three years.