Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson in the Kremlin has accused Nato of making “irresponsible” comments amid Europe’s ongoing efforts to secure a peace deal.

Nato chief Mark Rutte said on Thursday that the defence alliance should be “prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured”, and warned: “We are Russia’s next target.”

Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, eight years after illegally annexing the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

Russian-backed separatists in east Ukraine, the Donbas, have also been fighting Ukrainian troops since 2014.

The aggression against Ukraine caused an uproar among western allies in Europe and the US, pushing relations to their lowest depths since the Cold War.

There are widespread fears that,........

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