RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin’s actions mirror those of Nazi leader Adlolf Hitler during the last days of his life, according to an adviser to the head of Britain’s military forces.

Professor Gwythian Prins, a member of the Chief of the Defence Staff’s strategy advisory panel and of the Royal Marines advisory group, said failure to stop Russia will likely result in a wider war.

Asked if the current situation compared to the build-up to the Second World War, Professor Prins said, like today, it started with a call for increased defence spending.

He told GB News: “Defence expenditure is always degenerate. It’s unlike any other form of public expenditure in a democracy and the reason is, that in a democracy, defence expenditure is not controlled by any minister, not even the Prime Minister.

“The level of our defence expenditure is controlled by our enemies. We will always spend what it takes.”

The next six weeks in Ukraine would be crucial, Professor Prins said: “This is an important moment, but do remember that the Russian forces suffered a historic defeat in the first phase of this war.

“They are currently with 85% of their combined force committed in the effort in the Donbas so they are making very slow and bloody, almost First World War progress.

“They are short of high quality leadership and Mr Putin is now behaving just like Hitler did in the last days of his life and the Second World War.”

Speaking to Alastair Stewart, he added: “He has meddling in the detailed positioning and dispositions of his forces, he has just sacked the cheerfully named Butcher of Aleppo, General [Aleksandr ] Dvornikov and replaced him with a 20 stone retread retiree called General Pavel, whose great claim to fame was massive failure in Afghanistan.

“The Russian forces are not 10 feet tall. The Ukrainians are a rising force…and the morale of Ukrainian forces is at a very high pitch.

“We have the responsibility to ensure that they dictate the terms of the final settlement, otherwise, we will find ourselves faced with problems of a much greater scale, even in the Baltic states in the future.”

Another guest, Evening Standard defence editor Robert Fox, added: “This thing could be lost in the Donbass if we’re not careful…

“There are two things, they need more weaponry, they need more organisation, there’s a terrible problem of the number of people being killed, wounded, just being taken off the board of normal human life…

“There are too few munitions, probably because the Nato actually in its stocks hasn’t got all that.

“And people are getting a bit wobbly, principally the Americans and the Germans.”