Nato risks a nuclear war with Russia within a year if it does not increase its defence capabilities in the Baltic states, one of the alliance's most senior retired generals has said.

General Sir Richard Shirreff, who served as Nato’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe between 2011 and 2014, said that an attack on Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia – all Nato members – was a serious possibility and that the West should act now to avert “potential catastrophe”.

He has written a fictional book 2017 War with Russia, but told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the events it describes were “entirely plausible”.

General Shirreff said: “The chilling fact is that because Russia hardwires nuclear thinking and capability to every aspect of their defence capability, this would be nuclear war.

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“We need to judge President Putin by his deeds not his words,” he added. “He has invaded Georgia, he has invaded the Crimea, he has invaded Ukraine. He has used force and got away with it.

“In a period of tension, an attack on the Baltic states… is entirely plausible.”

Nato members would be obliged under Article 5 of its founding treaty to come to the defence of another member if it came under attack.

General Shirreff said that Mr Putin could be persuaded into an intervention in the Baltic by a “perception” of weakness in Nato, and predicted that, as in Crimea, the Russian president would present his actions as an act of defence to protect the large Russian-speaking minorities in those countries.

Nato has already stepped up defences in the Baltic states, but General Shirreff said that it needed to “raise the bar sufficiently high for any aggressor to say it is not worth the risk."

Russin jet's practise attack

“I would argue the bar is not high enough at the moment,” he added.