Category Archives: Russia

Britain, Government, NBC Warfare, Russia, Society, United Nations, United States

Britain expels 23 Russian spies in biggest reprisal since Cold War

BRITAIN

MOSCOW has vowed revenge against Britain after Theresa May ordered the biggest purge of Russian spies since the Cold War.

In a barely-veiled threat, the Kremlin said its response to what it described as a “hostile” package of measures announced by the Prime Minister “would not be long in coming”.

The United States has vowed to stand shoulder to shoulder with the UK in its response to Russian involvement in the Salisbury chemical attack.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said: “If we don’t take immediate concrete measures to address this now, Salisbury will not be the last place we see chemical weapons used. They could be used here in New York, or in cities of any country that sits on this council. This is a defining moment.”

Britain’s deputy UN ambassador Jonathan Allen accused Russia of deploying “a weapon so horrific it is banned from use in war”.

In a forceful statement to MPs, Mrs May said the Kremlin would be made to pay for its role in the Salisbury attack.

She confirmed that Moscow had failed to meet a deadline to explain how the Russian-produced military nerve agent Novichok came to be used in the attempt to murder former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

She said Russia had “treated the use of a military-grade nerve agent in Europe with sarcasm, contempt and defiance”. She added: “There is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian state was culpable for the attempted murder.”

The PM outlined a series of tough sanctions, including the expulsion of 23 suspected spies posing as diplomats as well as the threat of financial sanctions against Russian oligarchs and cronies of President Putin with assets in London.

The expulsion of diplomats is the biggest since 1985 and is designed to “fundamentally degrade Russian intelligence capability in the UK for years to come”.

High-level diplomatic relations will be scrapped, with an invitation to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to visit the UK revoked.

Mrs May also suggested that covert reprisals would be undertaken – in an apparent hint at cyber attacks aimed at damaging the Russian state’s propaganda machine.

British sources said Mrs May was willing to unveil even tougher sanctions if the Kremlin hit back.

A senior government official said: “We are responding in a way that is robust, it gives us the ability to respond if the Russians escalate but it is also in line with the rule of law, all of which is in stark contrast to the way the Russian state has behaved both in this instance and wider areas of policy. Further options remain on the table.” The official said that if the measures fail to produce a change in behaviour from the Kremlin… “we will look again.”

But Moscow has warned that the UK would face reprisals for the “groundless anti-Russian campaign.” The Prime Minister told MPs that the UK “does not stand alone in confronting Russian aggression”, with messages of support already received from key allies such as the US, France, Germany and NATO.

She added: “This was not just an act of attempted murder in Salisbury, nor just an act against the UK. It is an affront to the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons, and it is an affront to the rules-based system on which we and our international partners depend.”

Veteran Conservative MP Kenneth Clarke said the “bizarre and dreadful” use of a nerve agent appeared to be “a deliberate choice by the Russian government to put their signature on a particular killing so that other defectors are left in no doubt that it is the Russian government”.

Mrs May confirmed that Prince William and Prince Harry will join ministers in boycotting this summers football World Cup in Russia, but Government sources say that, although she called on the FA “to consider their position”, she will not order the England team to withdraw as there is no sign that other countries would join a walkout.

Labour MP Stephen Kinnock said: “The Russia World Cup risks vindicating the Putin regime. We should look at postponing the World Cup and hosting it in another country.”

Revised Foreign Office travel advice for Russia has warned of an upsurge in “anti-British sentiment or harassment” in a country plagued by violent football hooliganism. A Whitehall source said the estimated 2,000 fans who have bought tickets were likely to be issued with “very robust” travel advice.

 

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Britain, Foreign Affairs, Government, Russia, Society

Russian envoys could be expelled

SALISBURY ATTACK 

RUSSIA will face “robust” consequences if it is found to be behind the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, the Home Secretary Amber Rudd has warned.

Foreign Office officials  are thought to be going through a list of Russian diplomats to identify potential candidates for expulsion.

The minister declined to comment on possible Russian involvement in what Miss Rudd described as an “outrageous crime”.

But she revealed that other government ministers were already working on reprisals if the link to Moscow is proved, saying: “There will come a time for attribution, and there will be further consequences to follow.”

She added: “The use of a nerve agent on UK soil is a brazen and reckless act . This was attempted murder in the most cruel and public way. People are right to want to know who to hold to account.

“But, if we are to be rigorous in this investigation, we must avoid speculation and allow the police to carry on their investigation.” Privately, Whitehall sources believe it may be days before detectives can show a clear trail leading from Moscow to the park bench where former Russia double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found earlier this week.

Miss Rudd indicated that new “Unexplained Wealth Orders”, which allow for the confiscation of criminal assets, could be used against cronies of Vladimir Putin. Ministers also faced calls to approve a so-called Magnitsky Law, which would introduce sweeping powers to freeze the assets of Russian officials accused of human rights abuses. Former Conservative minister Sir Edward Leigh, said: “The circumstantial evidence against Russia is strong. Who else would have the motive and the means? Those of us who seek to understand Russia know that the only way to preserve peace is through strength. If Russia is behind this, it is a brazen act of war and humiliates our country.”

Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said evidence of a Russian link would have to be met by a package of “extremely stiff sanctions”.

He urged ministers to deploy the Unexplained Wealth Orders, saying: “We need to use the type of laws we use against criminals around the world – why shouldn’t we use the same measures we use against drug runners against this different type of criminal?” Labour’s Yvette Copper urged Miss Rudd to review 14 deaths in the UK that, according to BuzzFeed news website, have been linked to Russia by US intelligence agencies.

Miss Cooper, the chairman of the home affairs select committee, also suggested Miss Rudd consider going to the UN Security Council and asking for a statement from all nations to provide assistance. But the Home Secretary insisted: “Now is not the time to investigate what is actually only, at the moment, rumour and speculation.”

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Britain, Government, Russia, Society

Defence Secretary: Putin has hostile intent

BRITAIN-RUSSIA RELATIONS

VLADIMIR Putin has “hostile intent” towards Britain, the Defence Secretary has said. Gavin Williamson called for the UK to wake up to the threat posed by Russia.

He warned that the Kremlin had developed a much more aggressive posture towards the UK in the past 12 months and the country should not sit submissively by.

With relations between Britain and Russia believed to be at an all-time low, Mr Williamson told MPs that the country needed to “match what Putin is doing with Russian forces”.

During defence questions in the Commons, he said: “Putin has made it quite clear that he has hostile intent towards this country.

“We’ve been seeing the build-up of his forces across the Eastern front and in terms of what they’re doing over many years now – we have to wake up to that threat and we have to respond to it.

“And it is not just through nuclear weapons – our continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent is absolutely integral to maintaining the peace, but it is also through conventional armed forces. We have to match what Putin is doing with Russian forces.”

His comments came after he was asked by Labour’s Barry Sheerman about comments the Russian president had made in a statement-of-the-nation speech last week.

Mr Sheerman pointed out that Mr Putin had basically announced “a new Cold War”.

Mr Putin boasted in his speech that Russia had developed an arsenal of invincible nuclear weapons that are immune to enemy detection.

SERGEI SKRIPAL

Skripal

A former colonel in Russian military intelligence, Skripal was considered by the Kremlin to be one of the most damaging spies of his generation.

SERGEI Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence, was considered by the Kremlin to be one of the most damaging spies of his generation.

He was responsible for unmasking dozens of secret agents threatening Western interests by operating undercover in Europe.

Col. Skripal, 66, allegedly received £78,000 in exchange for taking huge risks to pass classified information to MI6.

In 2006, he was sentenced to 13 years in a Russian labour camp after being convicted of passing invaluable Russian secrets to the UK.

A senior source in Moscow said at the time: “This man is a big hero for MI6.”

After being convicted of “high treason in the form of espionage” by Moscow’s military court, Col. Skripal was stripped of his rank, medals and state awards.

He was alleged by Russia’s security service, the FSB, to have begun working for the British intelligence services while serving in the army in the 1990s.

He passed information classified as state secrets and was paid for the work by MI6, the FSB claimed.

Col. Skripal pleaded guilty at the trial and cooperated with investigators, reports said at the time. He admitted his activities and gave a full account of his spying, which led to a reduced sentence. In July 2010, he was pardoned by then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and was one of four spies exchanged for ten Russian agents deported from the US in an historic swap involving red-headed “femme fatale” Anna Chapman.

Mrs Chapman, then 28, was a Manhattan socialite and diplomat’s daughter, who had lived and worked in London during a four-year marriage to British public schoolboy Alex Chapman.

After the swap at Vienna airport, Col. Skripal was one of two spies who came to Britain and he has kept a low profile for the past eight years.

He is understood to have been debriefed for months before being given a home and a pension.

Col. Skripal was turned by MI6 when he was posted abroad as a military intelligence agent in Europe in the mid-1990s. During his years working for MI6, the spy unmasked dozens of agents threatening Western interests.

Col. Skripal was so well-connected that even after his retirement from his spy service in 1999 he continued to pass exceptional secrets to London by staying in touch with his former colleagues as a reservist officer.

He may finally have been snared by the FSB after passing his intelligence to MI6’s infamous “spy rock” – a fake stone packed with receiving equipment in a Moscow park.

Russian secret services exposed the ploy in 2006, revealing how British undercover agents transmitted their data to the rock via a hidden hand-held device while walking past it.

After Col. Skripal’s conviction, one official said: “His activities caused a significant blow to Russia’s external security.”

Chief military prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky said: “It is impossible to measure in roubles or anything else the amount of harm caused by Skripal.”

State-run TV in Russia even compared him to the legendary Soviet double agent Oleg Penkovsky, who spied for Britain and the US during the height of the Cold War.

Penkovsky was shot by a firing squad in 1963 and is regarded as one of the most effective spies of all time.

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