Putin calls secret meeting TONIGHT after threatening UK with new missile…as Brit military chief says we’re ready for war

VLADIMIR Putin has called a secret meeting for tonight after threatening the UK with his new deadly missile.

It comes as a top military chief told MPs Britain is ready to fight if Putin strikes another Eastern European nation.

As tensions between the West and Russia spill over, state-run channel Telegram chillingly shared Putin would be holding a secret meeting tonight but the Kremlin has yet to disclose what it will be about.

The channel also revealed there has been no contact between Russia and the US with hostilities between the two reaching boiling point.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant General Rob Magowan made an unsettling statement to the House of Commons defence committee yesterday.

The military chief said Britain's armed forced would be ready to fight their Russian counterparts should mad Vladimir invade another Eastern European nation.

The deputy chief of the British defense staff told the committee: "If the British Army was asked to fight tonight, it would fight tonight.

"I don't think anybody in this room should be under any illusion that if the Russians invaded Eastern Europe tonight, then we would meet them in that fight."

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has had to clarify that the UK is "not at war" after Russia's "irresponsible rhetoric".

He told BBC Radio Bristol: "We're not at war, but Ukraine certainly is, because Ukraine has been invaded by Russia, and that war has now been going on for just over 1,000 days.

"That's 1,000 days of aggression from Russia and 1,000 days of sacrifice for Ukraine, and that is why we've said consistently that we stand by Ukraine. We cannot allow Putin to win this war."

He also labelled Russia the "aggressor" and said the war "could end today if Putin stopped being aggressive".

Putin last night threatened to blitz military facilities in the UK and US after the two countries allowed Ukraine to use British-made Storm Shadow and US-supplied ATACMS missiles to strike inside Russia.

In a televised address on Thursday, the despot said his war in Ukraine was escalating towards a global conflict following the decision.

He then warned the West that Moscow could devastatingly strike back.

One of Ukraine's ex-top generals eerily claimed World War Three had officially begun as his country prepares for a Russian revenge strike on its Parliament building.

In his televised speech, Putin said Russia had launched a new kind of hypersonic ballistic missile dubbed "Oreshnik" in response to Ukraine's strikes in Russia's Kursk region.

The intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) hit a defence enterprise in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro yesterday morning.

A simulation video showing how these missiles operate reveals how it dodged Ukraine's defences.

According to the tyrant, his new deadly weapon travelled at 10 times the speed of sound and therefore couldn't be intercepted.

Russian sources claim its 5,000km range would allow Russia to devastatingly strike most of Europe and the west coast of the US.

It was initially thought that Russia had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) but the US later clarified this was incorrect.

Speaking last night, Putin said: "Russia considers itself entitled to use weapons against military facilities of countries that permit the use of their weapons against Russia.

"Since this moment, as we have underscored repeatedly, the conflict in Ukraine, provoked by the West, has acquired elements of global nature."

Confirming the use of the new Oreshnik, the mad dictator gloated: "One of the newest Russian medium-range missile systems was tested, among other things.

"In this case, with a ballistic missile in a nuclear-free hypersonic equipment. Our engineers named it Oreshnik.

"In response to the use of American and British long-range weapons, on November 21 of this year, the Russian armed forces launched a combined strike on one of the facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine."

Warning he could use the weapon against countries that have allowed Kyiv to use its missiles to strike Russia, the dictator added: "If necessary, we will choose targets for destruction.

"There are currently no means to counter such weapons. It is impossible.

"I recommend that the ruling elites of those countries which are considering allegiance against Russia seriously consider this."

There are fears Russia has up to 10 of these new terrifying ballistic missiles in its arsenal.

The Kremlin has said that a strike on Ukraine using the newly developed missile was a message to the West that Moscow will respond harshly to any "reckless" Western actions.

Putin's puppet and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that the West "cannot remain without a reaction from the Russian side" when producing and supplying missiles for Ukraine.

Peskov said: "The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns are not taken into account have been quite clearly outlined."

He added that Putin remained open to dialogue, but that the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden "prefers to continue down the path of escalation".

Ukraine branded Russia's strike a major ramping up of the "scale and brutality" of the war by a "crazy neighbour".

And the US said that Moscow was to blame for escalating the conflict "at every turn".

Zelensky said the new hypersonic ballistic missile reached the speed and heights of an ICBM.

ICBMs have a range of over 5,500km and were designed for nuclear war.

They blast into the edge of space and can reach speeds of 13,000mph before hurtling almost down to their targets.

Britain’s defence secretary John Healey said Russia had been planning the strike “for months”.

Nato's Eastern European members, including Latvia and Estonia, have been anxiously watching Russia's bloody invasion of Ukraine since it began in 2022.

Finland, which borders Russia to its east, has ramped up national security by publishing advice for citizens to prepare "for incidents and crises".

Nordic citizens were also told to prepare for war and handed chilling survival guides.

And Germany's World War Three preparation plans were also revealed in a 1,000-page secret document.

China has reiterated calls for "calm" and restraint by all parties in the war.

Bejing said on Friday: "China's position on the Ukraine issue has been consistent and clear, advocating for resolving the crisis through political means and avoiding an escalation of the situation."

China claims to be a neutral party when it comes to the Ukraine war and says it is not sending any assistance to either side - unlike the US and fellow Western nations.

But it's known that China remains a close political and economic friend to Putin and indeed Russia.

Nato has previously labelled Beijing a "decisive enabler" of the war.

Kyiv launched US ATACMS missiles against Putin's territory overnight on Monday - and British Storm Shadow rockets on Wednesday.

Russia threatened to "react accordingly" as embassies in capital city Kyiv closed down yesterday in fear of a retaliation.

A senior North Korean general was injured in Ukraine's Storm Shadow missile strike on Russia's Kursk region on Thursday.

And Putin's pal Kim Jong Un warned about the risk of a "destructive" nuclear war as he raged against the West for helping Ukraine.

In a speech at a military exhibition on Thursday the tubby dictator warned that "never before" had the Korean peninsula encountered "such a dangerous and acute confrontation", KNCA reports.

Boiling tensions "could escalate into the most destructive thermonuclear war," he said.

Moscow's ambassador to the UK accused Britain of being "directly involved" in the Ukraine war after the Storm Shadow strike against targets deep inside Russia.

Andrei Kelin told Sky News: "Britain and the UK is now directly involved in this war, because this firing cannot happen without Nato staff, British staff as well."

Moscow warned for months that the use of Western long-range missiles by Ukraine would mark a major escalation.

In September, a snarling Putin said it would "mean that Nato countries are at war with Russia".

And on Tuesday the rattled despot doubled down, approving a new nuclear doctrine just hours after the ATACMS strike.

The new policy allows Moscow to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states and Russia said the move should be seen as a warning to the West.

Putin's propagandist puppets blasted threats against the US and UK on TV - with top Kremlin lap-dog Dmitry Peskov swearing that the use of Western non-nuclear missiles by Ukraine's armies could spark a nuclear response.