‘A big problem’: Russia ‘at war’ with UK, says former British spy – who was left wedding rings ‘threat’
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”.
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Former British spy warns about Russia
The wedding rings left as a threat
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
Steele has made a series of serious claims in an exclusive Sky News interview
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.
Christopher Steele was interviewed by Deborah Haynes at Farnham Castle
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.
The Steeles on holiday in the Caribbean
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.
Orbis Business Intelligence in Central London
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.”
Israel’s defence minister has threatened to “take whatever measures necessary” to stop an aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg from reaching Gaza.
The climate campaigner, 22, is one of a dozen activists aboard the Madleen, which set sail from Sicily last Sunday on a mission aiming to break Israel‘s sea blockade.
The activists have said they plan to reach Gaza‘s territorial waters as early as Sunday to deliver humanitarian aid.
But in a post on X, Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said he has instructed the IDF to prevent the vessel reaching shore and to “take whatever measures necessary”.
Addressing Thunberg and the other activists, he said: “You should turn back – because you will not reach Gaza.”
He wrote: “I have instructed the IDF to act so that the “Madeleine” hate flotilla does not reach the shores of Gaza – and to take any means necessary to that end.
“To the anti-Semitic Greta and her fellow Hamas propaganda spokespeople, I say clearly: You should turn back – because you will not reach Gaza.
“Israel will act against any attempt to break the blockade or assist terrorist organizations – at sea, in the air and on land.”
Latest known position of the vessel
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Why is Greta sailing to Gaza?
Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament, who is of Palestinian descent, is also on the boat, which is operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
She has been barred from entering Israel because of her opposition to Israel’s policies towards Palestinians.
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Israel started allowing some basic aid into Gaza last month after a three-month total blockade aimed at pressuring Hamas and preventing the group from importing arms.
But humanitarian workers have warned of famine unless there is an end to the blockade and the 20-month war, which was ignited by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 Oct 2023.
An attempt last month by Freedom Flotilla to reach Gaza by sea failed after another of the group’s vessels was attacked by two drones while sailing in international waters off Malta.
The group blamed Israel for the attack, which damaged the front section of the ship.
A British surgeon has told Sky News she has never treated or seen anyone in a Gaza hospital in military uniform – and the only people she has seen with weapons are the IDF.
Dr Victoria Rose, a NHS plastic surgeon who has experience working in Gaza, said conditions there are now the worst they’ve ever been.
“There’s been a real escalation in the bombing campaign,” she told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips.
“The population is on their knees.”
Dr Victoria Rose in Gaza
Hospitals in Gaza have frequently come under Israeli military (IDF) fire – and sometimes find themselves besieged – in the ongoing war following Hamas’s October 2023 attacks on Israel.
Medical facilities are usually protected during conflicts under international law, but Israel has repeatedly claimed that Hamas uses them for command centres.
Asked about Israel’s allegations, Dr Rose said: “I’ve never treated or seen anyone – in any of the hospitals that I’ve worked in – in military uniform or with a weapon.
“The only people I’ve ever seen in Gaza with military uniforms and weapons are the IDF.”
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Palestinians ‘shot while getting food’
Dr Rose told Sky News about the impact of the war on hospital staff: “Lots of my Palestinian colleagues were telling me that they would rather die than carry on with this war.”
It comes as a controversial humanitarian organisation backed by Israel and the US said it did not distribute any food in Gaza on Saturday, accusing Hamas of making threats that “made it impossible” to operate. Hamas denied the claims.
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UN: 500,000 are food insecure in Gaza
The Israeli blockade on aid going into Gaza has severely affected the population, she said, leaving them malnourished and without the nutrients they need.
Speaking about her last visit to a hospital in the enclave, she said: “Infection rates were soaring… We were seeing a lot of avoidable deaths, a lot of small children dying from sepsis that would have been prevented if they’d been in in the Western world.”
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Despite a limited lifting of the blockade by Israel – the head of the UN called it a “teaspoon” – the aid situation in Gaza remains dire.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is endorsed by Israel and the US, took over responsibility for distributing aid in Gaza, but has been criticised for lack of experience, organisation and faces allegations of assisting in ethnic cleansing by luring Palestinians to the south of the enclave if they want food.
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Why is Greta sailing to Gaza?
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said on Saturday the GHF operation has “utterly failed on all levels” and that Hamas was ready to help secure aid deliveries by a separate long-running UN-led humanitarian operation.
A Hamas source told Reuters the group’s armed wing would deploy snipers on Sunday to prevent armed gangs looting food shipments.
World
Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay in ‘critical condition’ after attempted assassination – as 15-year-old suspect arrested
A 15 year-old-boy has been arrested after a Colombian senator running to be the country’s next president was shot and “critically” injured at a campaign rally in Bogota, authorities have said.
Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, 39, was targeted during the campaign event in a park in the Fontibon area of the Colombian capital, according to the Attorney General’s office.
He suffered two gunshot wounds when armed assailants shot him from behind and appeared to be bleeding from his head as he was helped by aides and people in the crowd, in a video posted on social media.
According to a medical report at the Santa Fe Foundation hospital, he was admitted there in a “critical condition” and is still undergoing a “neurosurgical and peripheral vascular procedure”.
Opposition senator Miguel Uribe Turbay on 13 May. Pic: AP
His wife Maria Claudia Tarazone wrote on X that he is “fighting for his life” and urged Colombians to pray for him.
Two other people were injured but the nature of their injuries has not been made public.
A suspect, a 15-year-old boy, was arrested at the scene with a firearm and is being treated for a leg injury, police chief General Carlos Triana said.
The government is offering a $730,000 (£540,000) reward for information and President Gustavo Petro said the investigation will focus on who ordered the attack.
“For now there is nothing more than hypothesis,” he said, adding that failures in security protocols would also be looked into.
People gather outside the hospital where Mr Uribe Turbay is ‘fighting for his life’. Pic: Reuters
Mr Uribe Turbay, who announced his presidential bid for the right-wing Democratic Center Party in March, was accompanied by a team of 21 people at the time of the shooting, his office said, including councilman Andres Barrios.
He was hoping to run in the presidential elections taking place on 31 May next year – and succeed Mr Petro, the country’s first leftist leader.
His mother, who was a journalist, was kidnapped and killed in 1991 during one of the most violent periods in Colombia’s history.
Forensic investigators at the scene of Mr Uribe Turbay’s shooting in Bogota. Pic: AP
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His party described it as an “unacceptable act of violence”, while US secretary of state Marco Rubio condemned it in the “strongest possible terms”.
Writing on X, Mr Rubio also urged Colombia’s current president to “dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials”.
Police outside the hospital where Mr Uribe Turbay is being treated. Pic: AP
Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, who is not related to Mr Uribe Turbay, said the gunman had “attacked the hope of the country, a great husband, son, brother, and a great colleague”.
He cancelled a planned trip to France due to the “seriousness of the events”, his office said in a statement.
Messages of support poured in from elsewhere in Latin America, with Chilean President Gabriel Boric saying: “There is no room or justification for violence in a democracy.”
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa added: “We condemn all forms of violence and intolerance.”
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