The terrorists have been “almost defeated while attempting to build their caliphate in Iraq and Syria,” he noted.

Yet, "the leaders of IS and other international terrorist groups have defined their global strategic objective as the creation of a new, worldwide terrorist network,” Bortnikov stated at a meeting of security services and law enforcement agencies from Russia and 73 other countries in the Russian city of Krasnodar.

READ MORE: Russian MoD releases videos of Air Force hitting ‘terrorist vehicles & hideouts’ in Syria

This expansion can be seen through attacks hitting not only war-torn states, such as Iraq and Syria, but also Spain, Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Finland and the UK, he noted.

The terrorists must “demonstrate to their current and potential future sponsors and sympathisers” that they still have the ability to take further action.