Russian president Vladimir Putin has the potential to be as bad as Stalin and the UK must urgently consider how to stave off the threat of a new cold war, former defence secretary Bob Ainsworth has said.

The senior Labour MP called for a new review of defence capabilities before the election, warning Russia is a bigger threat to peace than the Islamic State (Isis) insurgents in Iraq and Syria.

He made the assessment in a new article for the Chamberlain Files, a Birmingham public affairs website.

"No leader of a major power has behaved as overtly aggressively since Stalin in the postwar period, and sadly Putin would be very pleased with the comparison," he wrote. "He has said the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century and he claims the right to act on behalf of Russian minorities in other states.

As there are Russian minorities throughout the old Soviet Union and far wider he is in principle claiming the right to interfere in the affairs of all of the independent sovereign states of eastern Europe.

"Stalin's policies pushed the world into the cold war. Putin has the potential to be equally as dangerous."

Ainsworth argued that Isis is an affront to humanity but that it contains "non-state actors", whereas Putin's Russia confronts the world with a problem of a different magnitude.

He said the sanctions imposed by the EU are unlikely to go nearly far enough and called for more effective deterrents to halt Putin's expansionist aims.

Europe should reduce its reliance on Russian energy and the UK must revisit the strategic defence review of 2010 with cross-party agreement, he added.

"The prime minister told the House of Commons recently there is no need to look at the strategic defence review of 2010 despite the fact that large scale cuts are still being imposed on our armed forces and we have an army stuffed full of the kind of vehicles best suited to fight a counter insurgency in Afghanistan, not those likely to offer reassurance to our European neighbours facing a Russia that is re-equipping its own forces," Ainsworth said.

"These capabilities cannot be altered simply or quickly. All party agreement should be sought for a new review now, this side of the election, to look at what can be afforded and the kind of training and equipment needed in the face of the new scenario."

Cameron has pledged to increase defence spending in real terms in the second half of the decade, following deep cuts made in the defence review of 2010. Another review is due in 2015 but the government has so far resisted calls to bring it forward.

Last week, Gerald Howarth, a former coalition defence minister, called for a new comprehensive strategy for dealing with security threats arising from Ukraine, the middle east and north Africa.

"Since we completed our strategic security and defence review in 2010, fundamental changes have taken place across north Africa, the middle east and Ukraine," he said. "Nothing calls more for a really serious new strategic defence and security review than the state of affairs at the moment. I hope that the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and other government departments will put time and effort into producing a strategy.