A terror expert claims Scotland is at risk of chemical attacks by Vladimir Putin in revenge for the UK supporting Ukraine.
Author Graham Yuill quoted sources in the Russian intelligence services who said naval shipbuilding sites at Rosyth in Fife and Scotstoun and Govan in Glasgow are on a hit list.
Prestwick Airport – used as a refuelling stop for US planes – is also a target.
Yuill, who wrote the bestseller Putin’s Assassin about the 2018 novichok chemical attack in Salisbury, claims a team of spies based in Ireland are ready to strike across the UK.
The Glaswegian believes the Russian hit squads will target key military installations with a chemical nerve agent similar to but more deadly than novichok, which left one dead and five poisoned after the Salisbury incident.
The 63-year-old said: “This is information I have obtained from a reliable source.
"The use of the virtually unknown nerve agent novichok was a message that Putin has a collection of killer poisons – and no one who betrayed Russia was safe.”
Yuill believes the new wave of attacks will be carried out by field agents working for GRU – an arm of Russian military intelligence.
They are also being backed by the Moscow-based Federal Security Service (FBS), formerly known as the KGB.
Yuill added: “The GRU specialise in operations abroad. They basically bump off people.
“They are sending agents into the UK through their Dublin diplomatic residency.”
Yuill said the hit squads have access to disguises such as wigs, prosthetic noses, ears, false teeth and masks.
He added: “There is an entire GRU branch concerned with making artificial body parts to change someone’s appearance.”
Sergei Skripal, 70, a former Russian military officer, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned at their Salisbury home in March 2018.
Months later Charlie Rowley found a perfume bottle containing the nerve agent and gave it to partner Dawn Sturgess.
Both were poisoned and Dawn later died.
