Foreign espionage in the UK
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The United Kingdom is an espionage target for many countries. Everyone spies on everyone. Even friendly entities spy on each other. In point of fact, It emerged over a decade ago that the United States had been spying on the European Union despite its very warm relations with the EU. However, what most worries the United Kingdom is being spied on by hostile states such as Russia, China and Iran.
In 2023 a British soldier was charged with spying on behalf of Iran. The 22 year old was of Lebanese origin which might explain why he was collecting the names of British special forces soldiers and passing them to the Iranians. Many in Lebanon see Iran as a vital ally against Israel which has repeatedly invaded it.
There is an Iranian community of 200,000 in the United Kingdom. Most of those are in London. The majority of Iranians in the UK are liberals who revile the regime in Iran. But a few are pro-regime. The Iranian Government also wants to infiltrate dissident groups. There are protests in London almost every day against the Government of Iran.
In 2018 the United Kingdom expelled some Russian diplomats who were believed to be undeclared intelligence officers. This was in the wake of the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK. Skripal was a Russian intelligence officer who had been a British agent in the 1990s. He was caught and given a long jail term in Russia before being released in exchange for 10 Russian spies whom the USA caught. The Russian attempt to kill Sergei Skripal and his daughter failed. But a British woman happened to touch the poison and died.
In 2022 after Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the UK expelled dozens of Russian diplomats. The Kremlin of course riposted and expelled an equal number of British diplomats from the Russian Federation. The United Kingdom prioritised kicking out those whom it assessed to be intelligence officers.
Since 2022 Russia has found it more difficult to launch intelligence operations in the UK because it lost most of its intelligence officers. Therefore, it has to send people in without diplomatic cover.
The Vienna Convention says that diplomats may not be charged with a crime. If a host nation suspects a foreign diplomat of a crime, then he or she is expelled back to the home country. Therefore, spies under diplomatic cover face no danger of prison.
Since 2022 Russia has had to send in spies who are not under diplomatic cover. They pose as students, business executives, people on family visits or more rarely, tourists. Very few Russian tourists come to the UK these days. That is partly because they would be under suspicion in Russia when they returned.
Russia has taken to hiring non-Russians to do its dirty work. A Russian spy ring was busted in London in 2023. The spies were all Bulgarians working for Russia. Bulgaria was a communist country and the only Eastern European one where integration into the USSR was considered. It is a Slavonic and Orthodox Christian country. Therefore, bonds with Russia are strong. Despite being in the EU and NATO, tens of thousands of Russians visit Bulgaria every year. These is a considerable minority of Bulgarians who are overtly pro-Moscow. The actuation of these spies was ideological – they were not solely pecuniarily motivated.
Those without diplomatic cover used to be given false identities called ‘legends'. This includes a false name, date of birth, place of birth, occupation, education etc… To make it credible and easy to remember these are close to the truth. A woman born in 1990 might have a legend that says she was born in 1991 for instance. As for a false city in which a person grew up, it will be a city that he or she knows well so can describe it if asked about it.
Because of the internet and face recognition technology it is increasingly difficult to create a legend. Bellingcat is an open-source investigative journalism agency. It exposed the true identities of the two suspects in the Salisbury Poisoning case.
Russia has been recruiting amateurs out of desperation. They are barely trained and more likely to screw up. They are also more likely to be apprehended. Because they are often non-Russians there is some plausible deniability.
There is a significant Russian community in the United Kingdom: about 300,000 people out of a population of 70 million. Some of those 300,000 are only half or a quarter Russian. Some despise the Putin regime. But there are those among that 300,000 who would be willing to work for the SVR (Russia’s External Intelligence Service).
Moscow has long sought to keep tabs on Russian dissidents in London. Some high-profile Russians have met suspicious deaths in the United Kingdom. One of them was the multi-millionaire, Boris Berezovsky. Berezovsky was an early backer of Putin to be president. But the two men soon fell out very badly. Berezovsky shifed to the UK where both his daughters had been educated. Berezovsky won asylum in the United Kingdom. He said in an interview that Putin should be overthrown by force. The UK Government was incensed that he said something so provocative but was legally powerless to expel him.
Roman Abramovich and Berezovsky got into a legal dispute in 2013. Abramovich won the court case. Shortly after that Berezovsky committed suicide. He was 68, in good health, mentally sound, a multi-millionaire happily married and a had a few children. Yes, he was going to have to pay a few million GBP to Abramovich, but Berezovsky would remain a very rich man indeed. He killed himself. Was it really suicide? The British Police assessed that yes it was.
Berezovsky lived in an exclusive gated community west of London called Wentworth. It would not be possible for an assassin to get in, kill him and get out undetected. If it was murder, it must have been an inside job.
Warehouses storing arms to go to Ukraine have mysteriously gone up in flames. Russia would like to prevent such shipments.
The UK is running Operation Interflex. This is a military training programme for Ukrainians. Ukrainian men who are drafted into the Ukrainian Army or volunteer sometimes have no prior military experience. They are flown to the United Kingdom for a crash course in military skills. It can be as basic as how to put up a tent and light a campfire. They also learn first aid as well as skill at arms with their weapons. They are trained in how to assault a house full of enemy soldiers etc… This course takes about 6 weeks before they go home.
Other allies of the United Kingdom send soldiers to train the Ukrainian recruits. The trainers come from New Zealand, Canada and Sweden. The Swedes all speak superb English. Ukrainian interpreters are provided – most of them are women.
Russia is clearly not happy about the UK assisting its foes. They would like to know what is being taught in Operation Interflex, who are teaching it and ideally to stop the whole programme.
Over 150 000 Ukrainian refugees have come to the UK since 2022. The great majority of them are genuine refugees who are pro-Ukraine or occasionally neutral. But the United Kingdom suspects that a tiny minority are pro-Russia.
The pro-Russian parties sometimes won 20% of the vote in Ukraine before 2014 when Russia seized some Ukrainian regions: Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. Pro-Russian sentiment is more common in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine that are Russophone. British intelligence screened asylum applicants to try to block those who are pro-Moscow agents. There was enormous political pressure to expedite asylum decisions rapidly because refugees in 2022 were often camping in other countries in dire conditions. Inevitably a few Russian agents may have slipped through the net.
Russia likes to use the honeytrap. A British Conservative MP had a very nubile Russian woman of 21 apply to be his intern despite no previous interest in politics or knowledge thereof. He smelt a rat.
Russian diplomats have sought to forge links with republican terrorists in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland conflict ended in the 1990s. The Soviet Union helped to cause it. Russian President Boris Yeltsin even said in his memoirs that the USSR armed the terrorists. Moscow would like to see a recrudescence of that conflict.
The Republic of Ireland is seen as the back door to the United Kingdom. The Irish Republic spends only 0.2% of its GDP on defence. Therefore, its intelligence agency is tiny and poorly equipped.
There is an open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. One may drive or walk or take the train or bus across the border. There is no passport control! Foreign spies land in the Republic and cross into Northern Ireland: they are in the United Kingdom. They may then take a plane or ferry to Great Britain.
The United Kingdom is more anxious about Russian espionage than that of other countries. That is because Moscow openly threatens the United Kingdom very frequently.
Most nations will have an intelligence officer under diplomatic cover in every embassy. He or she will be declared to the host nation. This intelligence officer will then liaise with the host nations on intelligence matters of mutual interest.
Astonishingly, the United Kingdom maintains diplomatic relations with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (aka North Korea). Being the second poorest country in Asia it can only afford an ordinary house as its embassy.
China also has a tetchy relationship with the UK. London castigated China for breaking its treaty obligations on Hong Kong. The people of the former British colony were guaranteed their liberty for at least 50 years after the handover. China reneged on this and heavily oppresses the Hong Kongers.
Some British politicians have called out the Chinese genocide against the Uyghurs – a Turkic Muslim minority in Xinjiang Province. Moreover, some of the Uyghurs are held as slaves in factories.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) says any criticism of its cruel policies is ‘anti-China’. There are 350,000 people of Chinese origin in the UK. Some are Chinese Malaysians. There are people of distant Chinese origins.
There are 10,000s of university students from China in the UK. Cambridge University has taken major donations from the PRC. Academics there are told that criticising the Communist regime in China may lead to dismissal.
China operated illegal police stations in the UK. The Chinese Police (not in uniform) would rent a building and tell Chinese citizens to report there for questioning and form filling. No one was handcuffed or locked up.
Chinese students in the UK sometimes take part in blatantly regime-orchestrated demonstrations chanting ‘One China’. They oppose Taiwanese autonomy or free expression anywhere in China. They denounce Hong Kongers asserting their rights. Protesting against protesting!
It is ironic that pro-regime Chinese people are allowed to protest against the government in the United Kingdom, but this would never be allowed in China. China’s economic clout means that some in the United Kingdom are loathe to irk the Chinese.
There are Chinese dissidents in the UK. Many are Hong Kongers. The PRC surveils them.
10% of Chinese citizens are members of the Communist Party. Members of the CP swear lifelong fealty to the party. They must obey all orders of the party. This could include spying.
China has been caught trying to enlist British politicians as agents of influence. British lobbyists are sometimes invited to Hong Kong and offered lucrative contracts for what is officially lobbying but is unofficially spying.
Relations between Beijing and London are cool. The UK is highly cognizant of China’s aid to Russia during the war.
In 2024, 11 people were arrested in the UK and charged with spying on behalf of the People’s Republic of China. Surprisingly they were released on bail. Their espionage was not considered too serious. Some of the suspects were Chinese nationals and some were British.
The British one of them was Matthew Trickett a 37 year old immigration officer. Three days before his trial as due to begin he was found dead in a park in Maidenhead – a small town 20 miles west of London. How did a healthy young man suddenly die? The cause of death has not been disclosed and is still under investigation.
4% of the UK population is of Indian origin. About 1% of the UK population is Sikh. Some of them support the Khalistan Movement. RAW watches them. MI5 – British internal intelligence - also surveils the Khalistan Movement. MI5 keeps RAW informed of things. There is a cooperative relationship between the two intelligence agencies. They share adversaries such as China and the Taliban.
There are limits to the partnership between India and the UK. The British suspect India might pass information onto Russia.