DESPERATE Vladimir Putin could be ready to strike a NATO base in a bid to choke off arms to Ukraine, an ex-security chief warned last night.

Former National Security Chief Lord Ricketts said that Putin's evil forces are getting “increasingly desperate to choke off the flow of arms” in the worst attacks since World War II.

And he predicted that attacks on convoys or aircraft being shipped into the nation from the West could be on the way next.

He told the BBC he feared the horrific conflict was heading for "an angry stalemate, where Russia will hold on to quite a large part of the country" and Ukraine won't agree a settlement deal.

But it could turn into a "guerrilla war that would continue…a sapping, angry, difficult, open wound in the middle of Europe, and instability for years and years to come."

On Putin's thinly-veiled threats of chemical weapons attacks, he said: "I suppose what President Putin wants us all to fear is that he might want to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, which would be a momentous escalation and ensure Russia was isolated around the world.

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"More likely, I think what they're looking at is some way of preventing or limiting this flow of arms into Ukraine, keeping the Ukrainian Armed Forces going.

"So we may see attacks on convoys or aircraft bringing the arms in from the west.

"At worst, possibly, some kind of missile strike on a base in NATO, where the arms for Ukraine were being prepared.

"And that will certainly pose the NATO countries with a real dilemma."

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He said it was "not impossible" to see such a dramatic ramping up as "the Russians are getting increasingly desperate to try and choke off the flow of arms."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces were ready to fight Mad Vlad's men in the Donbas region, adding he would never give up territory to Moscow.

He told CNN on Friday: "This is why it is very important for us to not allow them, to stand our ground, because this battle… it can influence the course of the whole war.

"I don't trust the Russian military and Russian leadership.

"That is why we understand that the fact that we fought them off and they left, and they were running away from Kyiv — from the north, from Chernihiv and from that direction — it doesn't mean if they are able to capture Donbas, they won't come further towards Kyiv."

President Zelensky also warned the West to prepare for a Russian nuclear doomsday and urged the stockpiling of anti-radiations drugs and building shelters.

The battle-hardened leader told the US outlet that Putin may use tactical nukes if his war in Ukraine continues to stall.

"We shouldn't wait for the moment when Russia decides to use nuclear weapons… We must prepare for that," he said.

"All of the world, all of the countries have to be worried because it can be not real information, but it can be truth," Ukraine's head of state said.