A senior UK minister warned that Putin will not be satisfied with the conquest of Ukraine, sparking fears of a major global war.

Alarm bells are ringing in the West as Russia‘s troops appear to be taking full advantage of Ukraine‘s lack of ammunition and manpower to regain the battlefield initiative and seize more territory.

Putin’s invaders are currently pushing westwards from the eastern town of Avdiivka and are engaged in fierce battles for Chasiv Yar – a key staging post on the road to Kramatorsk and then Kharkiv – Ukraine‘s second largest city.

Some western military experts are even predicting the possibility of a Kremlin victory by the end of the summer.

Grant Shapps, the UK’s Defence Minister, said a victory for the blood thirsty Kremlin tyrant would most likely lead to more wars, not less.

He told the Sun: “If Putin were to win that war, he wouldn’t stop in Ukraine. He’d carry on.

“He’s talked about other areas that he thinks should be part of Greater Russia, basically the old Soviet Union…”

The UK politician added that other autocratic leaders would be emboldened by Putin’s victory to embark on their own military campaigns.

In particular he raised the spectre of China launching an invasion of Taiwan to reassert its sovereignty over the island state.

Fears that Russia could invade more of its neighbours have been stoked by recent comments from prominent Russian politicians.

Andrei Gurulev, a former Lieutenant General in the Russian army, revealed in a leaked audio recording last month that Kremlin officials were drawing up plans to invade Kazakhstan.

The Russian MP is pushing for an attack on Kazakhstan because he believes pro-Ukrainian forces there launched a devastating drone strike on an oil refinery in Tartarstan on April 2.

At the same time the Kremlin issued a blunt threat to Yerevan at the beginning of April after Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with senior EU and US officials.

Armenia is considering leaving the Russian security pact known as the CSTO – Putin’s version of Nato – after Moscow failed to stop Azerbaijan reclaiming the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Last week the Secretary General of the CSTO warned Yerevan of “confrontation” if it did not resume its membership of the Russian-backed security organisation.