Vladimir Putin “is coming for us” and Britain must be prepared “for the inevitable”, Ben Wallace has warned.

The former Defence Secretary said the tyrant blames the UK, “not the US”, for being “at the heart of Russia’s failures”.

Mr Wallace, in an alarming admission, said Britain “is in Putin’s crosshairs”, adding that the dictator is “not driven by logic”.

Instead, the former Tory minister warned, the Russian leader is “motivated by revenge, legacy and romance”.

The new head of the Army, General Sir Roly Walker, has previously warned Britain must be ready to fight a major war in three years as Russia will seek revenge on the West for aiding Ukraine.

Mr Wallace said Putin and his henchmen – former KGB spies known as Siloviki – “do not accept that they were the culprits behind the Soviet Union they inflicted on the Russian people”.

Mr Wallace declared: “These men at the top of Russia see themselves as rewriting history, by correcting the humiliation they felt at the end of the Cold War and settling scores for hundreds of years.

“While Russia is doing a very good job of, yet again, humiliating itself through its own actions, we should realise that in Putin’s version of history it is Britain, not the US, which is at the heart of Russia’s failures.

“In Putin’s warped worldview, we were behind the Crimean war and defeat of the Czars, we were behind the rise of Hitler, we were behind the counter-revolution and our espionage was behind the end of the Soviet Union.

“Britain is in Putin’s crosshairs. One of the most senior members of the Russian Siloviki recently commented: “We know Britain is behind the invasion of Kursk”. We weren’t.

“Make no mistake, Putin is coming for us. We must be prepared for the inevitable.”

General Sir Roly Walker, Chief of the General Staff, said the Army needed to rapidly modernise to double its ability to kill the enemy by 2027 and triple it by the end of the decade.

Sir Roly pointed to a scenario whereby a “very, very dangerous” Russia emerges from Ukraine, either defeated or as victor, China invades Taiwan and Iran becomes more aggressive.

“That is why you get to this point by … 2027-2028, this convergence may have reached some sort of mutual singularity and your ability to deal with them in isolation – a specific crisis that can be managed by the rules-based system – I think is significantly diminished,” Sir Roly said.

“A problem in one area is likely to trigger a sympathetic detonation in another and therefore it is a global problem looked at from different perspectives around the world.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted he keeps asking Western allies to be able to use long-range weapons on targets deep inside Russia .

“They don’t want to talk about it, and I keep bringing it up,” Zelensky quipped.

“The Olympics are over, but ping pong is still there.”

Kyiv has long argued that restrictions on the use of long-range weapons are stifling its war effort, while Western partners believe that allowing Ukraine to hit deep into Russian territory with the weapons they provide could be a cause for escalation.

President Zelensky has vowed that Kyiv will respond after the country was struck by another round of Russian strikes overnight.

Putin pounded Ukraine with more deadly missile strikes for a second day running on Tuesday, “wiping out’ a four-storey hotel used by civilians in Kryvyi Rih, home city of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

At least five people were killed, and dozens more injured in the latest salvoes – the Kremlin leader’s revenge for Ukraine’s ongoing successful incursion into mainland Russia.

As missiles rained down overnight, Ukraine‘s air defence forces warned that the entire country was under threat of a ballistic weapon attack.

The fresh assault came just a day after seven people were killed and dozens more were injured after more than half of Ukraine‘s regions were attacked by Russian drones and missiles – described by authorities as the biggest assault of the day.

At least two people – a man and a woman were killed in an attack on a hotel in the central city of Kryvyi Rih and two more died in a wave of drone strikes on the Zaporizhzhia region in the south east, officials said.

Ukrainian monitors had earlier detected Russian aircraft launching hypersonic missiles and the air force said it had shot down five missiles and 60 drones.

But Russia said it had launched 10 missiles and 81 drones, with some still getting through to their targets. In Kryvyi Rih, where President Zelensky was brought up, the four-storey Aurora Hotel was “wiped out”, authorities said.

There were fears of more people trapped under the rubble, as search dogs were used to locate survivors.

But Mr Zelensky revealed Ukraine carried out a successful test of the first domestic-made ballistic missile.

And Ukrainian troops control nearly 500 square miles of Russia‘s Kursk region since their surprise incursion three weeks ago, the chief of the country’s army has said.

General Oleksandr Syrskyi also said Ukraine has captured 594 Russian prisoners in its operation.

Commenting on the situation in Kursk, Mr Syrskyi said: “The enemy drags troops from other directions, in such way weakening them.

“They attempt to create a ring of defence around our offensive group of troops and plan counter-offensive actions.”