VLADIMIR Putin is a master manipulator who is trying to bluff the West into backing down, an ex-CIA agent has said.

But former intelligence analyst David McCloskey warned Putin’s threats have a “real impact” regardless of whether they are based on reality or not.

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It comes as the Russian leader has warned he could strike British and US targets after firing a new hypersonic missile at Ukraine this week.

The comments came as a direct response to Ukraine’s use of US-made ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles.

Mr McCloskey, who was recruited by the CIA at 19 and spent eight years working at field stations in the Middle East, said Putin knows how to use the threat of weapons to achieve his goals.

He told The Sun: “In the States, and I’m not sure how representative it is, but a there’s very vocal group who take World War Three sabre-rattling seriously.

“They are using it as part of an overall argument to essentially disentangle ourselves from the outcome in Ukraine.

“You can look at Putin and people around him and what they’ve said over the course of the conflict and say they’ve bluffed this over and over again.

“I think almost what Putin says doesn’t necessarily have to be based on any kind of reality to have a frankly real political impact.

“Putin is a former KGB man, he’s a master manipulator, and he knows how to use the threat of nuclear weapons as part of that.”

He was speaking ahead of the release of his new podcast The Rest is Classified with espionage author and BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera.

Mr Corera said neither Russia, the US nor Nato want a war or to use nuclear weapons.

But he said “we’ve moved up the ladder” towards a global conflict with the firing of US and British missiles towards Russia by Ukraine this week.

Mr Corera added: “On the one hand, if you’d said to me a few years ago that Russia’s carrying out sabotage operations all over Europe, and American missiles are being fired into Russian territory, I’d have been astonished and said that suggests we’re on the verge of war.

“But the reality is, we’re still in a situation where neither Russia nor the US and NATO want a war, or for it to go nuclear – it’s not in Russia’s interests.

“There’s a lot of talk about nuclear weapons and Putin brandishing them to try and get us to back down.

“Having said that, there is always a risk that things get out of hand, that each side feels they need to escalate.

“And that suddenly you get to a place where neither side wants to be, which is something close to conflict.

“And I think we’ve, you know, we’ve moved up the ladder quite steadily over the last couple of years of escalation.”

It comes as rumours have swirled since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine over Putin’s ill-health.

Suspicions arose again this week when the Kremlin was accused of pumping out several pre-recorded meetings of the tyrant with various Russian leaders.

Previously, it was thought the Russian ruler suffered from cancer, and he has been known to travel with a cancer doctor in his entourage.

There were also rumours several years ago of early stage Parkinson’s disease, when his hand was seen shaking, and he strongly gripped desks or chairs.

But Mr Corera says concerns over the Russian leader’s health are often “wishful thinking”.

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He also pointed out that the loss of Putin does not necessarily mean an end to the conflict or rising tensions.

The author said: “People talk about the fact that some small sign might indicate that he’s not in perfect health.

“But I’ve never seen or heard anything that really suggests he isn’t. I think we have to deal with Putin as he is, and where he is now, and that’s in power.

“Who knows for how long, but he’s been around for a long time.

“I’m not sure, even if he went, that it necessarily means, Russia changes direction completely.

“You don’t know that it wouldn’t be a (Yevgeny) Prigozhin or someone who is potentially more unstable who could take his place.”

His comments come as Putin called a secret meeting on Friday night after making his threat to the UK.

In a televised address this week, he earlier warned: “Russia considers itself entitled to use weapons against military facilities of countries that permit the use of their weapons against Russia.

“Since this moment, as we have underscored repeatedly, the conflict in Ukraine, provoked by the West, has acquired elements of global nature.”

Putin continued: “In response to the use of American and British long-range weapons, on November 21 of this year, the Russian armed forces launched a combined strike on one of the facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine.”

He warned the weapon, which he says is “impossible” to counter, could be used against countries that have allowed Kyiv to use their missiles to strike Russia.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant General Rob Magowan also made a bold statement to the House of Commons defence committee that Britain would be ready to fight.

The military chief said Britain’s armed forced would be ready to fight their Russian counterparts “tonight” if mad Vladimir Putin were to invade another Eastern European nation.

The deputy chief of the British defense staff told the committee: “If the British Army was asked to fight tonight, it would fight tonight.

“I don’t think anybody in this room should be under any illusion that if the Russians invaded Eastern Europe tonight, then we would meet them in that fight.”

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