Russian officials just piped up over MI5′s recent warning Moscow agents are looking to cause “mayhem” on British streets and wrote the claims off as “scare tactics”.
On Tuesday, MI5′s director-general Ken McCallum claimed Vladimir Putin’s “henchmen” were looking to strike away from the battlefield “in the misguided hope of weakening Western resolve”.
But the Russian Embassy in London rejected his remarks overnight, and decided to come up with their own bizarre theory as to why McCallum might have issued such a strong warning.
In a statement, shared on Telegram and reported in the Russian state news agency TASS, the officials wrote: “The Russian Embassy emphatically rejects the unsubstantiated allegations by director of MI5 Ken McCallum.
“By virtue of his profession Mr McCallum is well aware that the Russian Federation is the real target of proxy and mercenary warfare as well as hostile intelligence operations, conducted in the context of the Ukraine crisis by NATO countries, including the UK.”
They also claimed: “The scare tactics he seeks to employ are clearly aimed at sustaining the ebbing public support for the Kyiv regime which is quickly draining the UK’s finances and arsenals.”
After Russia invaded Ukraine in a land grab, the UK worked with its allies to wean itself off the country’s cheap fossil fuel exports and then imposed sanctions of anyone associated with Putin’s regime, including Moscow’s chemical weapons chief.
Western allies have also been sending weapons and money to Ukraine to help it defend itself against Putin’s army, and is considering allowing Kyiv to use the West’s long-range missiles to target sites within Russia.
Meanwhile, McCallum warned state threat investigations had risen by 48% in the last year, because Moscow and its allies in Iran are now using criminals to act as their proxies and cause chaos abroad.
The intelligence chief also discussed the threat the Russia’s secret service, GRU, poses to the UK in his annual speech on threats facing the country.
“The GRU in particular are on a sustained mission to generate mayhem in British streets,” he said from the government’s Counter-Terrorism Operations Centre in West London. “We’ve seen arson, sabotage and more. Dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness.”
McCallum expressed concerns that Iran were behind “plot after plot” on UK soil, too, in his highly-anticipated address.
According to Reuters news agency, Tehran has dismissed such claims.
An Iranian spokesperson alleged McCallum’s words were just repetitive “accusations”, and accused the UK of hosting “terrorist groups” which take advantage of free speech to promote violence.