Some years ago at the beginning of the Putin era, the consensus among several foreign policy experts was that Russia was about to re-assert itself in a manner that it had practiced so well during the Cold War. That is, attacking the United States by proxy. The proxy for the United States was to be one of our closest allies, the UK. The reason was very simple. The UK remains a member of the UN Security Council and other international bodies owing more to its status as a member of the WW II victory parade than to its current actual power and influence in world events. It is the “weakest link” of all the American allies and an easy target. Russia, it was predicted, would begin to attack the UK in every manner possible short of direct military confrontation. By doing so, Moscow would be taking on the entire western alliance and attempting to diminish the image of American and NATO dominance in world affairs. Going after London would be important symbolically, but it would involve little consequences for Russia given the inability of the UK to retaliate in any meaningful manner. The prediction has largely turned out to be true. There have been several diplomatic confrontations with the UK, the most serious of these involving the poisoning death of Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former KGB officer and Putin critic who had become a naturalized British subject. UK press organizations and other entities in Russia also find themselves under constant harassment over their country’s decision to grant political asylum to Boris Berezovskiy–another political enemy of Putin who has lived in London in self-imposed exile for years. Russian Tu-95 Bear bombers have even challenged UK air space and have been intercepted recently by Eurofighter aircraft of the Royal Air Force. But the most persistent and least-talked about assault by Moscow has been in the area of espionage. This week the head of the UK’s internal security and counterintelligence service, MI5, stated that Russian spying against London remains at Cold War levels. The consequence is that this constant harassment diverts intelligence resources that would be better devoted to fighting al Qaeda and other terrorist threats. Jonathan Evans, MI5’s director general, said this week that espionage by Russia, China, and other countries was detracting from the service’s mission of countering militant Islamists who were growing in number and now targeting children as young as 15 in Britain. “Since the end of the Cold War, we have seen no decrease in the numbers of undeclared Russian intelligence officers in the UK–at the Russian Embassy and associated organizations conducting covert activity in this country,” Evans said. “So despite the Cold War ending nearly two decades ago, my service is still expending resources to defend the UK against unreconstructed attempts by Russia, China and others to spy on us.” These comments were made as part of his first public speech since he became the head of MI5 this past April. That he chose to make this a subject of his first public address speaks volumes about just how pervasive Russian spying on the UK is at present.
Poor relations between the UK and Russia and their security agencies has been very public as of late. Each nation expelled four diplomats in July in a tit-for-tat dispute over Moscow’s refusal to extradite the prime suspect in the murder of Litvinenko. The suspect, Andrei Lugovoi, is himself a former KGB officer and is suspected of being the man who actually laced Litvinenko’s teapot at the Mayfair Millennium hotel in Grosvenor Square with the deadly Polonium 210 radioactive isotope. Continuing to distract the UK’s internal security services in their fight against Islamic and other religious or political extremists is no small worry. The nation’s capital is so full of extremists and would-be jihadists that it is widely known now as “Londonistan.” Furthermore, numerous nations that sponsor terrorism and wish to play a shell game with their funding have found refuge in London’s labyrinthine banking and finance communities. Ratcheting up the spy wars on the part of Moscow only limits the number of personnel available to track down those who wish to follow in the footsteps of bin Laden or the London underground suicide bombers. One of the symbolic steps taken by the Russian intelligence agencies as fallout from the Litvinenko poisoning was the suspension of any cooperation with the UK secret services on counterterrorism. This move pales in comparison, however, to the extent to which Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, and the military intelligence directorate, the GRU, continue to try and tie down the resources of MI5. At the end of the day it is another example of Russian hypocrisy of the first order. Moscow is usually the first to complain about those it labels as security threats to Russia being given safe haven in the UK–Berezovskiy being only the most visible of a number of individuals that the Russian government would like to see extradited. But, they think nothing of continuing to use the sanctuary of their embassies and consulates–and the diplomatic cover accorded to their representatives–to engage in activities inside the UK that are far more damaging and disruptive than any mischief these London exiles could even dream of fomenting back home in Russia. Attempting to undermine a democratically elected government in Ukraine, playing games with the gas valve to Western Europe, providing arms to rogue nations, murdering its own critics inside of its borders, cozying up to Hugo Chavez in order to stick a finger in Washington’s eye–these and many other misdeeds of the regime in Moscow are irresponsible and reprehensible. For these and other actions the Russia government can be called a force for instability and a detriment to democracy around the world. But, to the extent that it diverts the UK government from tracking down and monitoring the actions of some of the world’s most dangerous elements, it is indirectly aiding and abetting terrorism. In previous times this used to be called “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” Today it is an official component of Moscow’s foreign policy.
