At dawn on Thursday, President Putin let slip the dogs of war.

Long threatened, the reality is nonetheless frightening as missiles rained down on a once peaceful, democratic country.

At the moment, the invasion is restricted to Ukraine, but that’s not to underplay the threat.

General Sir Richard Shirreff, former NATO Deputy Supreme Commander, said that if Russia took just one step into a NATO country, we’d be facing a world war, with all 30 members committed to it.

He added that we must “man the ramparts”, especially the vulnerable Baltic States.

What’s sobering is that Sir Richard did not discount nuclear proliferation, saying that Russia “integrates nuclear thinking into every aspect of military doctrine”.

Putin himself warned the West against intervening in an alarming speech of “consequences you have never seen in your history”.

He’s a proven bully, with invasions of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, the Novichok attacks and numerous acts of murderous political oppression already to his credit.

He’s created a European dependency on Russian money and petrochemicals, and while Germany has postponed NordStream 2, the EU remains hopelessly reliant on other Russian pipelines.

And, regrettably, NATO has dropped its guard since the end of the Cold War, with two thirds of members failing even to pay the required minimum.

As I said in Parliament this week, if we are to fight for the freedom that we claim to hold so dear, we need sufficient planes, ships and soldiers to do it.

This threat to world peace brings home for the third time in a century the significance of defence and energy and food security.

Surely, it’s time to stop making the same mistake.