‘A big problem’: Russia ‘at war’ with UK, says former British spy – who was left wedding rings ‘threat’

Published

4 years ago

October 22, 2021

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Russia’s leaders believe they are “at war” with the UK and its allies but Britain is failing to deter the threat, a former spy who wrote an infamous dossier on Donald Trump has said.

Christopher Steele, 57, said he even suspected Russian agents may have left him a “calling card”.

He said intruders put two wedding rings in his wife’s washbag while they were on a Caribbean holiday about 18 months after his name emerged as the author of the dossier.

Asked what message he thought they were sending, the former MI6 officer said: “We know where you are. We can get to you. Don’t think you’ll be able to hide from us.”

In his first British television interview since his dossier – alleging collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in the 2016 US election – triggered a political earthquake in the United States, Mr Steele also claimed:

• He had evidence of Russian hostilities against Britain, including during the Brexit referendum

• Moscow thinks it could possibly collapse the European Union

• His wife’s career as a crown servant at the Foreign Office suffered in the fallout from the dossier, with her deciding to retire early

Mr Steele – once MI6’s top Kremlin expert, whose advice was sought by UK officials long after he left the service – warned that Russian hostility is growing.

“There are serious people at the top of Russia who regard themselves at war with us,” he said, speaking in the library at Farnham Castle in his hometown.

“The fact that our politicians neither want to recognise or deal with that is a big problem.”

But Lord Mark Sedwill, the UK’s national security adviser until last year, said he thought political leaders do recognise the Russia threat – one that he said is “diversifying”.

“Every senior politician I’ve dealt with… takes any threat of this kind really serious, they take national security seriously,” he said.

“They worry about the impact on the democratic process. They are right to do so.”

President Putin‘s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment on any allegations. The Kremlin has in the past denied all claims of election meddling and other hostile action.

Mr Steele left the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), better known as MI6, in 2009, after a more than 20-year career.

He set up a private intelligence company called Orbis Business Intelligence in Farnham with a fellow former spy, Christopher Burrows, 63.

In June 2016, they were hired – ultimately by a law firm representing Democrats – to look into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Over the next few months, Mr Steele compiled a series of unverified reports, which included claims of collusion and that Moscow held compromising video tape of Mr Trump.

A news website published the so-called dossier in January 2017, drawing furious denials from the then president-elect and forcing Mr Steele and his family into hiding.

Mr Steele claimed the fallout from the furore “profoundly affected” the career of his wife, Katherine, who at the time was a crown servant at the Foreign Office.

“Basically that didn’t play out at all well,” he said.

“She decided at a certain point that, yes, she would have to take early retirement, which is what she did.”

Asked how he felt, Mr Steele said: “Pretty angry and disappointed – as she does.”

A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development spokesperson said: “The UK government has been clear that it had no involvement in the production of the dossier.

“We do not comment on individual staffing matters.”

Mr Trump has dismissed the Russia dossier as a “hoax”, denied colluding with Moscow and denounced as false the sex tape claims. He has also derided Mr Steele as a “failed spy”.

Liz Harrington, the former president’s spokeswoman, said: “It was all a lie to try to discredit our movement which is more powerful today than it has ever been.”

Mr Steele said the Trump project was only a fraction of the work Orbis has done and is still doing on Russia.

In the run-up to the Brexit vote in 2016, he said he had been investigating the impact of suspected Russian interference in European countries.

Asked if he ever uncovered evidence of hostile operations against Britain, he said: “Yes”.

He said he would be looking at a range of different things.

“Everything from corrupt leadership money being brought onshore and invested in strategic industries and the like, which is something of concern, to potential attempts to fund parts of the Brexit campaign and interference in that, [the] Scottish referendum, some evidence of interference in that as well,” he said.

“That I regard as hostile behaviour, and certainly we came across that from time to time.”

Pressed on what sort of evidence he had, Mr Steele said: “I don’t have it to hand, but clearly some of the same playbook that we saw – so money being moved through deniable channels and coming out the other end, technically legal. There was a whole load of loopholes.”

Mr Steele also alleged that Russia posed a risk to wider European Union unity.

“I think they think they could possibly collapse the EU.”

World

Israel and Syria agree to ceasefire, says US ambassador to Turkey

Published

7 mins ago

July 19, 2025

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Israel and Syria agree to ceasefire, says US ambassador to Turkey

Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.

Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.

As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.

In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.

“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.

The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.

The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.

After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.

He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.

It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.

It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.

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World

‘Horrific incident’ at sheriff training facility in LA – at least three people dead

Published

6 hours ago

July 18, 2025

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'Horrific incident' at sheriff training facility in LA - at least three people dead

At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.

A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.

The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).

Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.

Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.

“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”

California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.

“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.

The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.

The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.

“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.

“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.

The cause of the explosion is being investigated.

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Unmasked: The 18 Russian spies who mounted series of attacks on UK

Published

6 hours ago

July 18, 2025

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Unmasked: The 18 Russian spies who mounted series of attacks on UK

Dozens of Russian spies have been sanctioned by the government – including those responsible for targeting Yulia Skripal five years before her attempted murder in Salisbury.

The Foreign Office has announced that three units of the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU) have been hit with sanctions, alongside 18 military intelligence officers.

Politics latest: Diane Abbott suspended from Labour

GRU officers attempted to murder Yulia Skipal and her father Sergei using the deadly Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury.

The 18 military intelligence officers have been targeted because of a sustained campaign of malicious cyber activity over many years, including in the UK, the Foreign Office said.

The government also accused the GRU of using cyber and information operations to “sow chaos, division and disorder in Ukraine and across the world”.

One of the groups sanctioned, Unit 26165, conducted online reconnaissance to help target missile strikes against Mariupol, including the bombing of Mariupol Theatre where hundreds of civilians, including children, were murdered.

Other military officers who have been sanctioned previously targeted Yulia Skripal’s mobile phone with malicious malware known as X-Agent.

The Skripals had moved to the UK after Sergei Skripal became a double agent, secretly working for the UK. He was tried for high treason and imprisoned in Russia – and later exchanged in a spy swap.

But five years after Yulia’s phone was targeted, the pair were poisoned with the nerve agent, Novichok, in Salisbury. Russia has always denied being involved in the chemical attack.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “GRU spies are running a campaign to destabilise Europe, undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty and threaten the safety of British citizens,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy said.

“The Kremlin should be in no doubt: we see what they are trying to do in the shadows and we won’t tolerate it.”

He said the UK was taking “decisive action” with the sanctions against Russian spies.

“Putin’s hybrid threats and aggression will never break our resolve. The UK and our allies’ support for Ukraine and Europe’s security is ironclad.”

Those sanctioned today include: