Admiral Sir Tony Radakin appears very confident the Kremlin is not looking for direct confrontation with members of the NATO alliance - and that Ukraine will prevail in the ongoing war.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin does not want a direct war with NATO and he does not want a nuclear war, the head of the UK armed forces has said.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin also signalled that Moscow and Beijing lack the military "proficiency" to defeat the kind of barrage of drones and missiles that the United States and its allies destroyed in April when Iran attempted to attack Israel.
In an interview to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings of the Second World War, the Chief of the Defence Staff sought to strike a reassuring tone that a third global conflict was not imminent, cautioning against using "loose language". Instead, he said things have merely become "a bit more dangerous".
But Admiral Radakin said he believed the British public would again rise to the challenge should there ever be another existential threat like the one once posed by Nazi Germany.
"Absolutely! I think our nation has got that pride, it has got that commitment," he said.
The admiral - who was unable to answer specific questions on UK defence issues because of the general election campaign - was speaking in front of the original map that was used to help plan "Operation Overlord", the codename for the allied invasion of occupied France.
It covers the entire wall of a room at Southwick House, near Portsmouth, where US General Dwight Eisenhower, along with Britain’s General Bernard Montgomery and Admiral Bertram Ramsay, agreed on the ultimate timing for D-Day on 6 June 1944 - after a 24-hour delay because of bad weather.
General Eisenhower "got to the point, apparently with the rain lashing against the windows here, and he said: ’Ok let’s go’," Admiral Radakin said.
In what remains the biggest ever seaborne attack, some 150,000 soldiers landed on the Normandy beaches on the first day, backed by 7,000 ships and more than 2,000 aircraft.
"What we can learn from it is that when nations come together, you can do amazing things," the UK defence chief said.