RUSSIA is scheming a top-secret plot to launch war on Europe while allies such as the US and UK divert their attention to climate change and the EU immigration crisis, a former NATO secretary general has warned. 

Heinrich Brauss, who is also a retired German lieutenant general, claimed while Europe, the US and UK’s attention is more focused on issues world leaders have deemed more pressing, Russian President Vladimir Putin is plotting a regional war with member states right under their noses.

He told Berlin publication Welt am Sonntag: “At a time when our political attention is shrouded in climate change, the migration crisis, the EU crisis and many other issues that call for cooperative solutions, Russia is preparing under Putin - totally unprovoked - for regional wars in Europe, which they want to end with the help of nuclear weapons threats.”

Mr Brauss and Joachim Krause, director of the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University, said the aim of Russia’s strategy is to seek confrontation with the West and undermine the unity of the Western alliance.