A dismantled European Union would encourage Russian militarism, a Scottish expert on Europe has claimed.

Sir David Edward, a former judge at the European Court of Justice, warned Brexit supporters that a vote to leave the EU would encourage Russia’s efforts to “recover” Ukraine and the Baltic states.

With Russia currently governed by an “unpredictable autocrat with ambitions,” the lawyer and academic said that Europe faced as dangerous situation as any since the Second World War and that a weaker EU would only promote Russian expansion.

Addressing an event organised by the Scottish Parliamentary Journalists’ Association, he said: “There are Russian submarines in the Baltic, there are Russian planes overflying Britain.

“It isn’t safe and we have a moral obligation to the Baltic republics and to other countries which escaped from the Russian clutch…to maintain the situation of political and economic stability in Europe”.