Vladimir Putin has boosted the number of nuclear warheads in his arsenal as he warns Nato countries that sending troops to Ukraine 'means war'.

Over the past year, Russia has increased its stock of nuclear warheads deployed on missiles and bombers by 78 to 1,796, marking a nine-year high, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Mr Putin has increased the number every year since the beginning of the war with Ukraine in 2022. 

But the US saw no rise and Britain and France did not deploy additional warheads, with 170 and 280 respectively.

Mr Putin, however, denied that Russia posed a threat to Nato allies in Europe and then warned of war. 

Speaking at the BRICS summit in New Delhi, he said: 'Now they [the West] are talking about how they are thinking about bringing troops to the territory of Ukraine. This means war with Russia.'

His threat coincides with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev's warning that Mr Putin could use nuclear weapons to turn Nato state Lithuania into 'scorched earth' and remove it from the 'world map'.

Mr Putin, who once claimed he had no aggressive intentions against Ukraine, said he had no plan to invade or threaten existing Nato states in Europe.

He said: 'There is no such threat, and there has never been. We are not threatening European countries, nor are we going to threaten them. Why would we?

'No one seems to even consider that we have no grounds for any conflict with Europe.'

Yet Mr Medvedev, Mr Putin's number two on the Russian Security Council, said the deployment of nuclear weapons in Lithuania, a former part of the Soviet Union, could trigger a doomsday response from the president.

He said: 'They would like to amend their constitution, which stated the non-nuclear nature of this large Baltic state, and thus open the door to the possible deployment of any weapons, including nuclear weapons.

'No one will stand up for them. Even if it becomes a scorched earth, no other [Western] countries will go to war for them.

'And the well-known Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty will not be implemented, everyone recognises this.

'Because if it is implemented, it will be a global catastrophe, planetary. They are not fools but Lithuania will disappear from the world map.'

Russia staged yet more overnight strikes on civilians, with 16 wounded in Odesa, including a five-month-old baby, as the upper floors of a residential high-rise were completely destroyed in a cruise missile strike, with a children's playground covered in debris.

In Volodymyr Zelensky's birthplace, Kryvyi Rih, one person was confirmed killed and another was missing in a brutal Russian ballistic missile attack.

In Zaporizhzhia, a woman, 64, and man, 37, were killed by Mr Putin's forces which also claimed to have destroyed a military logistics hub in Dnipro.

Ukraine used drones to attack a major Russian air force base and military airfield in Taganrog, igniting fires.

One target was a plant which services military planes including Russia's A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft.

Ukrainian drones attacked the military-linked KuibyshevAzot chemical plant in Tolyatti, Samara region.

It was the second Russian chemical manufacturer blitzed in two days.

This came as Britain revealed Mr Putin's toll of shame from the war at half a million dead – more than the UK's total losses in the six years of the Second World War.

On top of this, one million Russians have been wounded in a conflict Mr Putin refuses to halt.

The figures on Mr Putin's 'senseless and futile waste of human life' were released by Britain's Chief of Defence Staff Sir Richard Knighton.