Category Archives: Russia

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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Britain, Military, NATO, Russia, United States

Putin says Russia’s new nuclear weapons are invincible

VLADIMIR PUTIN

Putin

Vladimir Putin delivers his state of the nation address and says Russia has a new arsenal of invincible nuclear weapons.

RUSSIA has boasted that it has developed an arsenal of invincible nuclear weapons that are immune to enemy detection.

Vladimir Putin used his state of the nation speech this week to warn of his country’s resurgent military might, saying Russia was not listened to before, and declaring: ‘Listen to us now.’

The Russian president said his deadly weaponry included a nuclear-powered cruise missile that could reach anywhere in the world and an underwater drone with nuclear weapons that can obliterate an aircraft carrier.

Mr Putin also revealed details of an ‘invulnerable’ hypersonic missile and insisted it was not a bluff as he showed chilling test footage of the new kit. ‘No one else in the world has anything like that,’ he said.

He warned that any attempt to use nuclear weapons against Russia and its allies would bring instant retaliation. But Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson accused him of choosing a path of ‘escalation and provocation’ and added: ‘We are facing intensifying threats to our way of life and this development is another reminder to not let down our guard.’

Mr Putin made his hot-blooded claims as he laid out his key policies for another term in office, ahead of an election he is expected to win in 15 days.

The 65-year old president, who has led Russia for almost two decades, usually delivers the annual speech in the Kremlin but this year delivered his address from a nearby exhibition centre. This allowed him to show a series of slick video montages of missiles manoeuvring across mountains and oceans and heading over the Atlantic.

He quoted a 2004 speech in which he vowed Russia would develop a new generation of weaponry. ‘No one wanted to talk to us,’ Mr Putin said. ‘No one listened to us then. Listen to us now.’ It brought a standing ovation from the audience of lawmakers and celebrities.

He presented Russia’s military efforts as a response to recent actions by the US which last month unveiled plans to revamp its nuclear arsenal and develop new low-yield atomic weapons.

In a speech that ran to almost two hours, Mr Putin described several different capabilities which he said would render NATO defences completely useless.

One new weapon, called Avangard, is an intercontinental hypersonic missile that would fly at 20 times the speed of sound and strike its targets ‘like a meteorite, like a fireball’, he said.

The weapon is capable of performing sharp manoeuvres on its way to targets, making it ‘absolutely invulnerable for any missile defence system,’ Mr Putin added.

He said neither the nuclear-powered cruise missile nor the underwater drone had names yet, suggesting with dark humour that a public competition be held for ideas.

He also said that another new weapons system, called Kinzhal, is already operational and is a hypersonic missile carried by an aircraft that flies at ten times the speed of sound with a range of 1,250 miles.

Defence minister Sergei Shoigu later said Russian arms would be able to ‘overcome all existing anti-missile systems’ such as those the US intends to deploy in eastern Europe and South Korea.

. See also A policy brief warns that NATO and Russia are preparing for conflict…

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