Vladimir Putin’s closest ally has threatened to unleash World War 3 on the West if the UK sends troops onto Ukrainian soil. On Sunday, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that any British soldiers training soldiers inside Ukraine would be legitimate targets for Russian forces and “ruthlessly destroyed”.

The Kremlin mouthpiece’s furious claims were made after British defense secretary Grant Shapps said he was considering deploying UK troops to train soldiers inside Ukraine.

Medvedev is seen as Vlad’s ‘yes man’ and often makes blood-curdling threats aimed at Nato states. The lap dog’s latest chilling warning is that the West’s actions are bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.

He directed his fury at Shapps who told The Sunday Telegraph that he wants to “eventually” deploy military instructors to Ukraine and train Ukrainian troops in Britain.

In a post on Telegram, Medvedev fumed: “The number of leading idiots in Nato countries is growing. “One newly minted cretin – the British Minister of Defence – decided to transfer English training courses for Ukrainian soldiers to the territory of Ukraine itself.

“These idiots are actively pushing us towards a Third World War.” He continued: “[This will] turn their instructors into a legal target for our armed forces.”

“Understanding perfectly well that they will be ruthlessly destroyed. And not as mercenaries, but namely as British Nato specialists.”

The presidential spokesperson also warned that German factories producing Taurus missiles would also be a target should they supply Kyiv.

Moscow fears that the German-made missiles could strike within Russian territory and help cut off its supply to its army. Rishi Sunak later clarified the defence secretary’s comments and shut down speculation that Brit soldiers could enter the war-torn region imminently.

He said today: “What the Defence Secretary was saying was that it might well be possible one day in the future for us to do some of that training in Ukraine.

“That’s something for the long term, not the here and now, there are no British soldiers that will be sent to fight in the current conflict. More than 20,000 recruits from Ukraine have received training in the UK since the start of 2022.

Meanwhile, Russian cyber criminals targeted the Royal Family yesterday — days after King Charles’s condemnation of the Ukraine war. Hacktivist pro-Putin group KillNet said they brought down the royal.uk website for 90 minutes this morning ­— forcing Palace chiefs to scramble their cyber security experts.

A source said: “This was a denial of service attack which saw the site bombarded with traffic.” Royal fans trying to log in saw the message “Gateway time-out error code 504”.

Soon after, KillNet bragged on messenger app Telegram that it was responsible. And KillNet’s leader — KillMilk — boasted of his involvement on his personal blog 20 minutes after the site went down.

Palace chiefs said senior royals’ personal accounts weren’t hacked, nor sensitive information stolen. But the ease with how the attack was executed will jolt the family.

Royals have been hugely supportive of Ukraine ever since Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded in February last year. Two weeks ago, King Charles received a standing ovation in Paris when he blasted Russia’s “unprovoked aggression” and said “Ukraine must prevail”.