MI6 chief hits out at Russia
THE chief of Britain’s foreign intelligence service warned the Kremlin yesterday not to underestimate the West after a brazen nerve agent attack on a retired double agent in England stoked fears about Russian covert activity abroad.
In his second major speech since being named in 2014 to head the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, Alex Younger said Russia has a stance of “perpetual confrontation” with the West.
After the attack on Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who betrayed dozens of agents to MI6, Britain’s allies in Europe and the US took its side and ordered the biggest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War.
Britain identified the nerve agent deployed in the English town of Salisbury as Novichok, a highly potent group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet military in the 1970s.
“The Russian state used a military-grade chemical weapon on UK soil,” Younger told students at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. “Our intention is for the Russian state to conclude that, whatever the benefits it Reuters
thinks it is accruing from this activity, they are not worth the risk,” he said.
Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement and accused British intelligence agencies of staging the attack to stoke anti-Russian hysteria.
“I should emphasise that even as the Russian state seeks to destabilise us, we do not seek to destabilise Russia,” Younger, 55, said.
Less than four months before the UK is due to leave the European Union on March 29, Younger said MI6 continued to work with partner agencies to strengthen “indispensable security ties” in Europe.
In a recruitment pitch, Younger gave some details of his own life, including drinking obscure homemade alcohol in an attempt to penetrate an organisation intent on genocide in the Western Balkans in 1990s.
“If you want to make a difference and you think you might have what it takes, then the chances are that you do have what it takes, and we hope you will step forward.”