The Kremlin has suggested that UK foreign secretary Liz Truss is responsible for its decision to raise its nuclear alert.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for Russian president Vladimir Putin said today: “There were unacceptable statements about possible conflict situations and even confrontations and clashes between Nato and Russia. I will not name the authors of these statements, although it was the British foreign secretary.”

Over the weekend Putin announced in a televised address that he had ordered Russian nuclear forces to operate on a “special regime of duty”, and that the country had raised its nuclear alert level.

Putin also described western sanctions against his regime as “illegitimate” and “aggressive”.

Defence secretary Ben Wallace said this morning that Putin’s comments were being kept “under review,” arguing that it was a “big attempt to distract away from his [Putin’s] troubles in Ukraine by just deploying into the media space these phrases.”

“The people of the United Kingdom should not be unduly alarmed,” Wallace later told Times Radio.