‘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 to continue with Gaza City offensive despite talks to free Hamas hostages

Published

6 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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Israel to continue with Gaza City offensive despite talks to free Hamas hostages

Israel will resume negotiations with Hamas for the release of all hostages captured during the October 7 attack, Benjamin Netanyahu has said – but its military will continue its Gaza City offensive despite international outcry.

The remarks from Israel’s prime minister are the first since Hamas agreed to a temporary ceasefire proposal.

Talks will also be with a view to ending the war, but Mr Netanyahu said it must be on “terms acceptable to Israel”.

In the meantime, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have begun calling medics and international organisations in northern Gaza to encourage them to evacuate to the south ahead of the expanded operation in Gaza City.

Many of Israel’s closest allies have urged the government to reconsider. Some Israelis fear it could doom the remaining 20 or so living hostages taken by Hamas-led militants in the 7 October 2023 attack which ignited the war.

Israel plans to call up 60,000 reservists and extend the service of 20,000 more.

Speaking to soldiers near Israel’s border with Gaza, Mr Netanyahu said he was still set on approving plans for defeating Hamas and capturing Gaza City.

“At the same time I have issued instructions to begin immediate negotiations for the release of all our hostages and an end to the war on terms acceptable to Israel,” he said.

“These two things – defeating Hamas and releasing all our hostages – go hand in hand,” he added.

The latest ceasefire proposal drawn up by Egypt and Qatar is almost identical to an earlier one that Israel accepted before the talks stalled last month.

The proposal would include the release of some hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a pullback of Israeli forces and negotiations over a lasting ceasefire.

‘Don’t tell us where to build’

Israeli strikes killed at least 36 Palestinians across Gaza on Thursday, according to local hospitals, including at a tent camp in Deir al-Balah.

Meanwhile, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, was summoned to the Foreign Office in response to a controversial West Bank settlement plan which has been given final approval.

The project, known as the E1 settlement, would effectively cut off the occupied West Bank from East Jerusalem and divide the territory in two.

The UK and 21 international partners have released a statement to condemn the decision “in the strongest terms” calling it “a flagrant breach of international law” and “critically undermining a two-state solution”.

Ms Hotovely gave Sky News her response to the meeting: “I said we wouldn’t tell the British where to build in London. Don’t tell us where to build in Jerusalem, our capital. We see E1 as part of Greater Jerusalem.”

UK warns of ‘horrifying starvation’

The UK has also responded to comments from the head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA that famine in Gaza is “deliberate” and being used as an “instrument of war”.

Minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer, has called for a “comprehensive [peace] plan to end this misery and get to a long-term settlement”.

“Israel must immediately and permanently lift all barriers preventing aid reaching the people of Gaza to prevent the horrifying starvation in the Strip continuing,” he added.

Demand for Gaza media access

The Media Freedom Coalition, which includes the UK and 50 other countries, has called on Israel to allow foreign media access into Gaza.

In a joint statement, the coalition, which is a partnership of countries working to defend media freedom, urged Israel to “allow immediate independent foreign media access” and “afford protection for journalists operating in Gaza”.

They said this was in light of the “unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”.

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Israel maintains pressure on Gaza City as ‘first stages of attack begin’

Published

9 hours ago

August 21, 2025

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Gaza City residents say Israel carried out intense overnight bombardments as it prepares a controversial offensive to take control of the area.

Sixty-thousand reservists are being called up after Benjamin Netanyahu‘s security cabinet approved the plan earlier this month.

UN chief Antonio Guterres has warned of more “death and destruction” if Israel tries to seize the city, while France’s Emmanuel Macron said it would be a “disaster” that would lead to “permanent war”.

Live – UN warns of ‘forcible transfer’ as forces advance on Gaza City

Hundreds of thousands of people could end up being forcibly displaced – a potential war crime, according to the UN’s human rights office.

Gaza’s health ministry said at least 70 people had been killed in Israeli attacks in the past 24 hours, including eight people in a house in the Sabra suburb of Gaza City.

Israel currently controls about 75% of the Gaza Strip, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has said Israel must take Gaza City to “finish the job” and defeat Hamas.

Mr Netanyahu and his ministers are due to meet on Thursday to discuss the plans, according to Israeli media.

Military spokesperson Effie Defrin said earlier that “preliminary operations and the first stages of the attack” had begun – with troops operating on the outskirts of Gaza City.

Israel has said it will order evacuation notices before troops move in but satellite images show thousands of people have already left.

Residents said shelling has intensified in the Sabra and Tuffah neighbourhoods and that those fleeing have gone to coastal shelters or to central and southern parts of the Strip.

The decision to stay or leave is an agonising choice for many.

“We are facing a bitter-bitter situation, to die at home or leave and die somewhere else, as long as this war continues, survival is uncertain,” said father of seven Rabah Abu Elias.

“In the news, they speak about a possible truce, on the ground, we only hear explosions and see deaths. To leave Gaza City or not isn’t an easy decision to make,”

Most of the Israeli reservists being summoned are not expected to be in a frontline combat role and the call-up is set to take a while.

The window could give mediators more time to convince Israel to accept a temporary ceasefire.

Hamas has already agreed to the proposal – envisaging 10 living hostages and 18 bodies being released in return for a 60-day truce and the freedom of about 200 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel hasn’t officially responded, but insists it wants all 50 remaining hostages released at once. Only 20 of them are still believed to be alive.

The war started nearly two years ago when a Hamas terror attack killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped around 250.

More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The figure doesn’t break down how many were Hamas members, but it says women and children make up more than half.

Two more people also died of starvation and malnutrition in the past 24 hours, the ministry said on Thursday, taking the total to 271, including 112 children.

COGAT, the body controlling aid into Gaza, said 250 aid trucks entered on Wednesday, with 154 pallets air-dropped.

World

Police in Kenya begin exhuming shallow graves of suspected cult victims

Published

11 hours ago

August 21, 2025

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Police in Kenya begin exhuming shallow graves of suspected cult victims

Police, pathologists and grave diggers have started the exhumation of 27 shallow graves in Kenya’s Kilifi County.

The remains are believed to be of followers of a deadly cult in Chakama Ranch, a part of the Shakahola Forest.

In 2023, more than 400 mass graves were discovered in the same forest, all members of controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie’s church. They were encouraged to starve themselves to death to get into heaven.

It remains one of the world’s worst cult-related tragedies. Mackenzie is still in jail and faces numerous charges of terrorism, child torture and murder.

The remote forest has again been turned into a crime scene.

Morticians were seen carrying out body bag after body bag, some containing the remains of children believed to have been starved to death.

State pathologist Dr Richard Njoroge said this is just the beginning, as investigators expect to find many more bodies: “Today we managed to exhume six.

“Of the six graves, we found five bodies and then also around that area we found ten different scattered body parts, scattered in different places on the surface.”

Eleven suspects have already been arrested in connection with these deaths and will appear in court on Friday.

Police are investigating links to Mackenzie and members of his Good News International Church.

At the exhumation today, pathologists said they were still working to identify the bodies of those exhumed from Mackenzie’s cult.

“We had 453 at the closure of that exercise, I think, we released around 33 or 34 last time. So, from there are 419 remaining,” Dr Njoroge explained.

Police have encouraged families in the area with missing loved ones to come forward and provide their DNA samples, as efforts to identify the dead continue.

Kenya is grappling with a rise in religious extremism and many churches operating informally.

Parliament passed several preliminary bills aimed at regulating religious organisations last year, but implementation has stalled after resistance from church leaders.