The UK must “prepare for a Russian nuclear attack” and contingency plans should be made just in case Vladimir Putin launches a missile to Britain.

A Cambridge academic who works as a researcher at the university’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk gave the grim warning speaking to The Telegraph.

Russia keeps warning Western nations there will be a World War Three if NATO imposes a no-fly zone over Ukraine and the Russian Foreign Minister warned last week the next global will include nuclear weapons.

Read more on Russia-Ukraine war:

Russian Foreign Minister sends a chilling warning to the West and warns ‘World War III will be nuclear’

Experts warn Putin could drop a nuclear ‘tactical‘ weapon over ‘the North Sea’ in a show of force

$1,000,000 bounty placed on Vladimir Putin’s head ‘Dead or Alive’ for ‘mass murder’ as he is a ‘war criminal’

Paul Ingram told The Telegraph, “It does look like government departments across the piece need to plan quite urgently what each of them would do in this sort of scenario.”

Ingram said government officials are most likely “dusting off some of the Cold War plans from the past,” and said a nuclear escalation on the UK has now increased to a one in 80 chance, but believe a nuclear war is unlikely.

Government departments “need to consider key services like food, shelter, drinking water and energy and telecommunications.”

“We need to be thinking about if there was radiation, and if there was less sunlight. What are the best crops to be growing?’, the researcher added.

“How can we ensure that seed banks are fully stocked with the seed that we would need?”

Ingram said that if a nuclear bomb is dropped on the UK then for many year sunlight will be partially blocked as the atmosphere will contain smoke and soot.

The Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters have previously advised that seaweed grows in low light and insects are full of protein which “as more resilient to radiation” and are therefore good choices of food.

The organisation also said that growing potatoes and sugar beet could also be grown.