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'NEW NOVICHOK'
Vladimir Putin could kill again on Britain’s streets, warns Defence Secretary Grant Shapps
Mr Shapps said Putin was a despotic leader who had lost all pretence of legitimacy
VLADIMIR Putin could kill again on Britain’s streets, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps warned last night.
And in fiery remarks, he compared the threat posed by the Russian tyrant to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
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Mad Vlad already has blood on his hands for the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Mr Shapps said.
And he believes Putin could use Cold War tactics to kill here in Britain, too — as he did with the Salisbury Novichok poisonings.
Mr Shapps said Putin was a despotic leader who had lost all pretence of legitimacy.
He said: “Putin has Navalny’s blood on his hands.
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“Navalny should never have been in prison.
"His crime was standing up to an autocratic and now dictatorial Putin, who has a long history of bumping off his opponents.
“He does it at home and abroad.
“And the world must not waver or bend to that kind of squalid leadership.
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"We know what happens when you do — you end up with the mess of the last century.”
Political activist and Kremlin critic Bill Browder has warned Putin has a hit list of people he wants to kill in Britain.
Zelenksyy's message on 2nd anniversary of Putin's war
And Mr Shapps said the UK could see another Novichok-style murder attempt in the UK.
Mr Shapps said: “Look what happened in Salisbury. We’ve seen what Putin is capable of.
“His behaviour makes him a pariah. He thinks the more he does it the stronger he gets.
“But in the eyes of the world it makes him more desperate and weaker.”
Asked if the UK could see another Novichok hit, he said: “We are always tracking and trying to prevent those things.
“But do I think he has intent? You have seen that. So, yes.”
Russian-born double agent Sergei Skripal, 72, and his daughter Yulia, 39, were poisoned by the deadly nerve agent in Salisbury in 2018.
They survived, but mum Dawn Sturgess, 44, died after coming into contact with the poison thinking it was perfume.
Our nukes 'are best'
THE Defence Secretary has scrambled to ease fears over Britain’s nuclear weapons — after The Sun revealed that a Trident 2 missile misfired.
Grant Shapps said he was 100 per cent confident in our arsenal and blamed the failure on test conditions.
He was on board HMS Vanguard when the missile fell into the ocean and sank.
He said: “In a live firing it would have landed on target. Our weapons are the most reliable in the world.”
In another grim echo of the Cold War, Russian opposition leader Navalny died in a Siberian gulag earlier this month.
Again, the Kremlin is suspected to be behind the 47-year-old’s death, having previously poisoned him with Novichok.
Mr Shapps said: “Because it’s so far outside of the parameters of civilisation, it’s sometimes hard for the Brits to believe.
“But it’s Putin’s modus operandi.
"His approach if he doesn’t like someone is, don’t vote them out, just bump them off.”
The tyrant was “right up there” as one of the biggest threats to world peace since Hitler, he added.
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Mr Shapps issued the warning to The Sun on Sunday as the world marks the second anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine.
It was with a mixture of rage and disbelief that people woke up on February 24, 2022, to see that Red Army tanks had rolled over the border.
Mr Shapps said: “I was called at 3 in the morning to say there would be a car outside at 6am to take me straight to a Cobra meeting.
"At Cobra, they said the global expectation was three days to Kyiv.
"So, here we are entering the third year and the brave Ukrainians are absolutely still going strong.
“And when I meet President Zelensky, or my opposite number, they say it would not have happened without Britain — and your readers should know that.”
'Cobra meeting'
Mr Shapps was speaking while on a tour of RAF Valley — a fighter pilot training school in Anglesey, Wales.
It is like a scene in Top Gun.
Around us, young men clad in khaki are hopping into Hawks — fighter jets used for training pilots.
At another, secret location in the UK the RAF trains Ukrainian fighter pilots who then use their skills on the front line of the war.
But two years on, Western backing for the war risks collapsing.
In America, Republican politicians rail against the cost of bankrolling a war overseas.
Donald Trump is the bookies’ favourite to be the next US President — but many reckon he will axe support for Ukraine.
Issuing a direct appeal to the US and Mr Trump to stick with Kyiv, Mr Shapps said: “We must never allow an autocratic leader to walk into a democratic country to achieve their ends. It is in America’s own interests.”
For Mr Shapps, the battle for Ukraine is about more than one country’s borders — it is about the future of world peace.
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He refused to call for Putin to be ousted as Russian leader, saying: “We don’t seek to impose liberal Western democracy on others.”
But he added: “We do demand they don’t invade their neighbours. And Putin has crossed that line.”
‘No Schnapps’ for Tory MPs
GRANT Shapps has shrugged off speculation he is plotting a leadership bid by hosting Schnapps with Shapps drinks parties for Tory MPs.
The Defence Secretary, 55, is rumoured to be eyeing a bid if Rishi Sunak is ousted as PM.
But he told The Sun on Sunday: “I have never done schnapps with Shapps. I don’t think I have had schnapps my entire adult life.
“I am fully focused on the next election with our brilliant hard-working Prime Minister.”
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