By Lucy Caulkett
Russia is being accused of waging a “campaign” of propaganda and unconventional warfare against Britain.
Senior figures in the U.K Government say Moscow is to blame for attempts to undermine the UK through fake espionage, misinformation, cyber attacks and fake news.
Concerns about the scale of the espionage and attacks were said to have been voiced by intelligent senior agents in the Cabinet a couple of months ago.
A source with knowledge of the meeting told The Times: “There was an agreement on the need to do more across Whitehall to understand and assess and formulate options on how to respond to Russian activities.”
U.K Prime Minister, Theresa May, is set to chair a National Security Council session within weeks to examine Russian actions towards Britain and its allies and explore potential responses. Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is believed to be behind the cyber attacks, but no evidence of this has been presented.
U.K companies are believed to have been penetrated and affected by Russian cyber attacks. U.K and U.S intelligence are generally efficient in the quality of information they discover, but no evidence of this latest news has been supplied
Intelligence from security services do not always present the source of their information, especially where it is highly sensitive.
U.S intelligence officials have maintained that President Putin was personally involved in a Russian-led hacking campaign to influence the outcome of the American elections in order to favour Donald Trump. That allegation may be true, but caution is required in the absence of concrete evidence.
The C.I.A however have many advanced ways of arriving at their conclusions, so that the absence of concrete evidence in the public domain does not mean the quality and integrity of the information is not sound. However, it would be helpful to see some evidence of the fresh claim being made that Britain is now also the subject of cyber attacks from Russia.
This will be serious if it is the case, and will mean Russia is courting further tensions with the West through this kind of unacceptable behaviour. Let’s hope this is nothing more than strong suspicion.
Putin has always been viewed as a trouble maker with lots of devious tricks up his sleeves.Many believe he is indeed capable of what he is being accused of, but Russia has vehemently denied the allegations.
President Obama yesterday promised to take retaliatory action against Moscow, saying: “We need to take action and we will at a time and place of our own choosing. Don’t do this stuff to us, because we can do this to you.”