Ukraine’s ‘Pearl Harbour’ strike on Putin ‘may have breached nuclear doctrine’

Putin could use ‘game-changing’ nuclear weapons in a show of strength hours after Ukraine’s drone strikes, an expert has warned.

The Russian leader could deploy deploying nuclear weapons, Dr Stephen Hall told Metro.

Ukraine blew up scores of Russian nuclear bombers in a mass drone attack on Sunday.

Codenamed ‘Operation Spiderweb’, at least 40 war planes were hit by drones which were smuggled into Russia and then launched remotely off the back of trucks. It represented a huge security failure for the Kremlin, after it emerged the operations ‘office’ was right next to a branch of Russia’s secret service.

The Bath University lecturer told Metro: ‘The response will be a large attack. Putin cannot be seen to look weak.

‘They will target whatever they can and claim they are military targets