ALEX Salmond's chat show on Russian TV risks showing the SNP doesn't understand the difference between good and evil, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said.

He insisted the former First Minister had put the SNP's credibility on the line, and compared his actions to Jeremy Corbyn's "anti-Western" world view.

Mr Hunt spoke out after a speech in Glasgow in which he warned cyber attacks could turn elections into “tainted exercises” unless action is taken.

He said it was a “material fact” that the Russian state has tried to subvert democracy in other countries.

The Foreign Secretary was later quizzed about Mr Salmond’s RT show by Scottish Tory constitution spokesman Adam Tomkins, who asked whether it represented a risk to British national security or "just a risk to the SNP’s credibility".

Mr Hunt said: “It's more about the SNP's credibility when they do these kind of things, and I think the risk that they run is the same risk that Jeremy Corbyn runs with the Labour Party in the UK.

“Corbyn has an approach that essentially he will support anyone who shares his anti-Western world view and therefore by definition if you're anti-America, anti-Israel, anti-the West, then he will support you.

“That is why he refused to condemn Russia over the novichok attacks in Salisbury, and I think Alex Salmond runs exactly the same risk of fundamentally showing people that the SNP doesn't understand the difference between good and evil, and doesn't understand that for all its faults, the international order that we have at the moment has done more to promote freedom and democracy than any international order that we've had in history.

“That has happened because of the efforts of the UK and USA after the Second World War, to set up the order that we have.”

Nicola Sturgeon previously distanced herself from her predecessor's decision to host a chat show on RT, which is widely seen as a propaganda outlet for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

She said "his choice of channel would not have been my choice", and insisted she would have "advised against RT" if she had been asked.

When the move was announced in 2017, SNP MEP Alyn Smith told the Herald: "What the f*** is he thinking?"

Outlining a new strategy to combat cyber threats, Mr Hunt stressed there was "no evidence of any successful interference in British or Scottish elections or referenda".

But he added: “If we look at what Russia has been doing in other countries we can see that there is a real cause for concern as to what their intentions might be.”

He highlighted the Ukrainian elections in 2014 where Russia "took a very key role", as well as the hacking of the Democratic National Committee ahead of the 2016 US presidential election.

Mr Salmond dismissed Mr Hunt’s comments and insisted the former UK Health Secretary “knows as much about the international order as he did about the English Health Service when he provoked the first doctors’ strike for 40 years”.

He added: “In less than a year as Foreign Secretary he has compared the European Union to the old Soviet Union, described non-aligned Slovenia as a former vassal state and defended the Saudi bombing of South Yemen.

“His hapless meanderings endanger UK national security every time he opens his mouth while his track record to date makes his predecessor Boris Johnson look like a competent diplomat.”