Russia is spying on British infrastructure with an eye for "chaos," "panic" and "killing thousands and thousands" of Brits, according to the UK defence secretary.

Gavin Williamson said Putin's Russia is thinking "How can we hurt Britain?"

The Kremlin is actively looking at Britain's key gas and electricity supplies, Williamson added.

The head of the army has warned Theresa May that the military does not have enough money to compete with Russia.

LONDON — Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has warned that Russia is prepared to "kill thousands and thousands" of Brits through devastating attacks on UK infrastructure.

In an interview with The Telegraph, the MP for South Staffordshire accused Moscow of researching the UK's critical infrastructure, including gas and electric supplies, with an eye for creating "panic" and "chaos" for millions of Brits.

Vladimir Putin's Russia is willing to take action against other states that "any other nation would see as completely unacceptable," Williamson claimed.

"The plan for the Russians won’t be for landing craft to appear in the South Bay in Scarborough, and off Brighton Beach," said Williamson, who Theresa May appointed defence secretary in November.

"What they are looking at doing is they are going to be thinking 'How can we just cause so much pain to Britain?'' "Damage its economy, rip its infrastructure apart, actually cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths, but actually have an element of creating total chaos within the country."

The Kremlin is spying on Britain's key infrastructure and thinking "How can we hurt Britain?" he added.

Williamson referred to undersea interconnectors — one for electricity and three for gas — which provide for around three million British homes. This number is set to rise to eight million in the near future, The Telegraph adds. Britain's defence secretary Gavin Williamson (R) arrives at the Ministry of Defence. Darren Staples/Reuters

"Why would they keep photographing and looking at power stations, why are they looking at the interconnectors that bring so much electricity and so much energy into our country," Williamson added.

"They are looking at these things because they are saying these are the ways that we can hurt Britain.

"If we lost our interconnectors, which would be something that we know that they are looking at, there would be three million homes without electricity. In a few years time there will be eight million homes that would be dependent.

"If you could imagine the domestic and industrial chaos that this would actually cause. What they would do is cause the chaos and then step back.

"This is the real threat that I believe the country is facing at the moment."

May told to give British military more money

Williamson's warning comes in the same week that army head, General Nick Carter, warned Prime Minister May that the British military needed more funding to compete with Russia in all forms of warfare.

"Our ability to pre-empt or respond to threats will be eroded if we don’t keep up with our adversaries," Carter said in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) think-tank in London.

"We must take notice of what is going on around us or our ability to take action will be massively constrained. Speed of decision-making, speed of deployment and modern capability are essential if we wish to provide realistic deterrence."

He'll add: "The time to address these threats is now — we cannot afford to sit back."