Vladimir Putin threatened Gordon Brown during a trip to Moscow and forced him to sit on a low stool

Former Labor leader Gordon Brown met with Vladimir Putin on a visit to Moscow in 2006 and revealed that he was unnerved by the tyrant and had “no illusions” about his character

Gordon Brown has revealed that he felt threatened by Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin during a trip to Moscow.

The then Chancellor visited the Kremlin in 2006 when he met with the President.

To confuse his British visitor, Putin produced a series of cards and read information about him.

The incident left the future Labor Prime Minister “not under any illusions” about what his opponent was like.

He told that Telegraph Magazine : “I first met Putin in the Kremlin in 2006, when I was Chancellor… and I was put in a very low seat, so I looked up to him.

“Anyway, that day he took out those flashcards and proceeded to read out all this information that he had on me, as if to prove he knew more about me than I knew about myself.

“So when people say that Putin has changed and is only threatening now, I can tell you that he was already threatening me then.”

Mr Brown, 71, later targeted the 150 countries that failed to impose sanctions on Russia after Ukraine’s brutal invasion in February.

He told Sophie Raworth on Sunday morning’s BBC show: “I applaud NATO’s unity, but there is a problem with coordinating sanctions when some countries are unwilling to do so.

“What we have also seen is global disunity – 82 countries are refusing to support action against Russia for its violation of human liberties, 150 countries around the world are not imposing sanctions, so we have global disunity.

“One of the reasons is that we have not shown people that Western-led globalization is working to reduce poverty, raise living standards and of course tackle climate change in poorer countries, and that we are really delivering on our promises have to.

“Two billion people remain unvaccinated despite the fact that 24 billion vaccines will be produced this year.

“And of course the climate promises to Africa were not kept.”

It comes as MI5 revealed dozens of Russian spies may be in Britain looking for him Ukraine War.

The spy agency believes that Putin has ordered all sleeper agents – under deep cover – to be ready to spring into action.

Spy hunters are already on the alert for possible cyberattacks in response to Britain’s support for Ukraine.

And intelligence chiefs fear agents will also try to steal our military secrets and target Russian dissidents and Ukrainian activists who live here.

Sources claim Putin has spies in every sector of British society, from top public schools to civil servants and the House of Commons.

A senior intelligence insider said: “We have to assume so Russia is now active at all levels of British society.

“They siphon all kinds of intelligence information and feed it back to the Kremlin through handlers.”