KavkazCenterWorld Date: 11 July, 2012
Time: 01:54 Emirate time

Events Russian spies in Britain distract MI5 from war with Islam
[8 April 2012 , 13:21]

The Daily Telegraph reported in an article "Number of Russian spies in the UK back to Cold War levels, say security services" about Russian spies in the United Kingdom. The newspaper writes: 
"Up to half the staff at the Russian embassy in London could be involved in intelligence gathering, a senior source told The Daily Telegraph.

Around 40 Moscow spies are believed to be operating in this country at any one time. Some are involved in traditional state espionage, while others monitor London-based oligarchs or engage in industrial spying for the commercial benefit of Russian firms.

There are fears Russia will ramp up its efforts over the coming months while the UK security services focus on the Olympic Games and the Queen's Jubilee celebrations.

Britain's close relationship with America is also hugely attractive for Russia who sees it as a "back door" to US intelligence, one expert warned.

Relations between the two nations have been strained in recent years, in particular following the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 and difficulties in extraditing the chief suspect Andrei Lugovoi.

In the same year, Britain was accused of placing a fake rock containing a transmitter in a Russian street to help steal classified data.

The UK initially denied any knowledge of the "spy rock" but earlier this year Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's former chief of staff, admitted it was true.

And last year allegations that Katia Zatuliveter, who had an affair with an MP on the defence select committee, was a spy were raised during an immigration tribunal.

The panel concluded she was not a spy even though MI5 had "ample grounds for suspicion".

It is believed there could be as many as 40 Russian spies active in the UK at any one time - similar to if not higher than numbers just before the end of the Cold War, sources said.

In 2007, Jonathan Evans, the director general of MI5, said despite the thawing in tensions after the Cold War, he was still "expending resources to defend the UK against unreconstructed attempts by Russia, China and others, to spy on us".

"It is a matter of some disappointment to me that I still have to devote significant amounts of equipment, money and staff to countering this threat", he said.

"They are resources which I would far rather devote to countering the threat from international terrorism (the West calls so the war with Islam - KC) - a threat to the whole international community, not just the UK".

(It is to be noted that outstanding mental abilities of the British police are well aware for the British themselves.

The tasks, insurmountable for British police mental abilities are easily solved by a private detective Sherlock Holmes in the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as by a simple housewife Miss Marple and a Belgian outsider Hercule Poirot in the novels by Agatha Christie. The guilty turns out to be innocent and vice versa.

In this case, the situation is similar. In fact, not the Russian spies distract police from the fight for the safety of Britain, but the stupid and obviously senseless war with Islam distracts from the struggle against espionage and subversive activities of the centuries-old and constant enemy of all civilized nations in the world - Russia.

Russia is the main enemy of security not only for Britain but also for the West and the so-called international community - KC).

The newspaper continues further:

"Oleg Gordievsky, a high profile KGB defector, has warned the number of spies here could be even greater than there were in the mid-1980s - when 39 intelligence officers were based in the embassy.

Mr Gordievsky was a KGB colonel and head of station in London. He worked as a double agent for MI6 because his arrest in Russia in 1985 and subsequent escape to Britain.

Jonathan Eyal, a Russia expert at the respected security think-tank, the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said: "They are back to where they were in quantity to the period just before the end of the Cold War".

Mr Eyal said the UK is always of interest to Russia. It is seen as a potential back door in to US intelligence because a breach here could be like a "Trojan Horse" for breaching America's secret due to our close working relationship.

There are fears the level of spying will now step up this summer while intelligence officers concentrate on major events.

Mr Eyal said: "It is likely there is going to be a dip in the capability of our security services in either identifying or monitoring increased activity because everything will be going in to the Olympics and Jubilee".

Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center

[1] photo from article