The SNP has launched a searing attack on what it called the "heavy fist" of the Russian Government of President Vladimir Putin.

In another clear signal of support for independent states in central and eastern Europe, the party's defence spokesman, Stewart McDonald, accused the Kremlin of terrorising its neighbours and suggested Western Europeans were not standing up to Mr Putin.

In an article in the Moscow Times, an English-language online paper widely read across the former Soviet Union, the Scottish Nationalist MP said moves this week to readmit Russia to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council Europe, or PACE, were a "grave mistake".

Russia was suspended from PACE, a key pan-European human rights body, after its 2014 invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

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Western European parliamentarians largely voted to let Russia back this week - arguing PACE offered protections for Russians. Some Eastern and Central European nations were furious at the move, with Ukraine threatening to boycott PACE and saying the Council of Europe was "discredited".

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Stewart McDonald

Mr McDonald made it clear in his Moscow Times article that he backed the eastern European position over the western.

He wrote: "Much of the eastern European region is battling under the Kremlin’s heavy fist, whether it be kinetic operations that violate their sovereignty or more subtle ways of showing small, independent states that Moscow believes it’s in charge.

"Indeed, just last week we learned the identities of the four Kremlin-backed agents charged with the MH17 terrorist attack that killed 298 innocent people.

"It’s also nearly one year since the U.K. government uncovered the identities of the two GRU agents who carried out a chemical weapons attack on U.K. soil, which led to the hospitalization of two Russian nationals, a serving police officer and the death of an innocent British citizen, Dawn Sturgess.

"The international community reacted in horror, and a coordinated expulsion of a record number of Russian diplomats followed. Who’d have thought they’d unravel it all within a year?"

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Many Scottish nationalists have long instinctively felt common cause with the small independent nations created by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. However, the party also has a strong record of supporting detente with Moscow. 

Its representative on PACE, Hannah Bardell, voted against re-admission, the party's agreed line. Previously, her substitute, Tommy Sheppard, had voted for a rule change that paved the way for the vote.

Ms Bardell told The Herald she understood arguments that bringing Russia back in to the Council of Europe would protect ordinary Russians.

But she said: "I have to say I have difficulty with this because we know that previously if monitors uncover anything that the Russians don't like they are kicked out of restricted.

"So we think at this point in time there has been so little progress on the many issues - such as the rights of national minorities or the LGBT community - that re-admitting Russia was the wrong thing to do. 

"I don't think this casts the Council of Europe in the most positive light."

Mr McDonald attended this year's Kiev Pride - writing about his experiences in The Herald's sister paper, The National - and, along with other senior SNP politicians has visited the frontline in Donbass, an eastern Ukrainian region controlled by separatists regarded as Kremlin proxies.

The SNP has claimed Russia was likely to have interfered in the 2014 independence referendum, an event equated in Kremlin propaganda to a much-criticised plebiscite which rubbed-stamped the annexation of Crimea.

Latvian parliamentarians voted against re-admitting Russia. Latvia's ambassador to the UK was in Edinburgh this week for talk with Scottish Government and opposition leaders.