Think tank believes UK-Russia relations will worsen further

relations could get worse before they get better, the deputy director general of a prominent security think tank has said.

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, from the Royal United Services Institute, highlighted how diplomatic links between the two countries are currently at “the lowest point” since the end of the Cold War.

His comments come amid allegations that intelligence officers from the Kremlin tried to hack the Foreign Office and the international body investigating the Salisbury nerve agent attack.

“UK-Russia relations are at the lowest point they have been since the end of the Cold War,” Prof Chalmers said.

“There are a number of areas which Russia could begin to dig out of this hole, and I think there would be many in the UK who would want to reciprocate.

“But, I think the balance of probabilities is that things could get worse before they get better.”

On Thursday the Foreign Office, Dutch authorities and US Department of Justice disclosed information on a number of malicious cyber activities allegedly conducted by Russia.

Dutch authorities revealed that with the help of UK intelligence they thwarted an attempted cyber attack on the headquarters of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague.

Peter Wilson, the UK ambassador in The Hague, also said both the Foreign Office and Defence and Science Technology Laboratory at Porton Down were also targeted by a group of GRU miliUK-Russian tary intelligence service hackers in Russia known as “Sandworm”.

The US Department of Justice also said it had indicted seven suspected GRU officers for “malicious cyber activities” against the US and its allies — including some of those named in connection with the OPCW attack.

Taking place within hours of each other, Prof Chalmers said he thinks the disclosures were an example of western countries co-ordinating their response.

“This is a deliberate information operation by western governments because they want to remain on the front foot in relation to what Russia has been doing,” he said.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the disclosures were “hard evidence” of the “unacceptable” activities of the GRU which Britain has previously blamed for the attack in Salisbury.