We’re ready for war, says Brit military chief as Putin threatens to strike UK targets in response to Storm Shadow blitz

BRITAIN would be ready to fight "tonight" should Vladimir Putin strike another Eastern European nation, a top military chief told MPs.

Lieutenant General Rob Magowan made the chilling statement to the House of Commons defence committee as tensions between Russia and the West continue to spiral.

It comes as the UK gave Ukraine the green light to use British-made Storm Shadow missiles to strike inside Russia.

The army chief said Britain's armed forced would be ready to fight their Russian counterparts "tonight" if mad Vladimir Putin were to 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."

Meanwhile, 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.

Ukrainian MPs are preparing for a Russian missile attack on their parliament building after one of the country's ex-top generals eerily claimed World War Three had officially begun.

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.

Putin said on Thursday that his war in Ukraine was escalating towards a global conflict after the US and Britain allowed Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia with Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles.

He has since warned the West that Moscow could devastatingly strike back.

In direct response to Ukraine's strikes, he said Russia had launched a new kind of hypersonic ballistic missile dubbed "Oreshnik" at a defence enterprise in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

This deadly missile, according to Putin, travelled at 10 times the speed of sound and therefore couldn't be intercepted.

Russian sources claim the range was 5,000km - which 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 clarified this was incorrect.

In a televised address on Thursday, 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."

He warned that it could use the weapon against countries that have allowed Kyiv to use its missiles to strike Russia.

And that there is currently no means to counter such a weapon.

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."

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”.

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.

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.