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formation campaign” had been launched in the aftermath of the air assaults.
Chief spokeswoman Dana White said: “There has been a 2,000 per cent increase in Russian trolls in the past 24 hours.”
Fake profiles on sites including Twitter and Facebook are being used to share false stories about the air strikes.
And the Kremlin is also thought to be boosting the number of spies in the UK – just weeks after ex-double agent Sergei and daughter Yulia were poisoned with nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury, Wilts.
A security source said: “This is an escalation of the current Cold War. Russia is planning to increase the number of spies on the ground here.”
Ex-Afghanistan British Forces commander Colonel Richard Kemp added: “After Friday night’s strikes, and also Britain’s response to the nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury, the Russians will certainly be seeing us as more of a direct enemy. I think the likelihood is they will be increasing espionage activity.”
The rocketing tension comes as sources claim Russia is now ready to bolster its air defence systems in Syria.
It plans to bring in sophisticated surface-toair missile systems designed to pick off cruise missiles in any further attacks on al-Assad’s secret stockpile of chemical weapons.
Prof Clarke said: “Al-Assad has chemicals dispersed in lots of other places that British forces cannot pinpoint or are not prepared to bomb because of civilian casualties.” There have been in excess of 1,000 docuSkripal mented uses of chemical weapons in Syria since 2013 and more than 100 in the last year alone. It is all part of relentless bid by Assad – who posted a Twitter video of himself calmly walking into work in Damascus yesterday – to drive out rebel groups who oppose his regime.
Meanwhile, at a United Nations Security Council meeting yesterday UN Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya had a tense meeting with British Ambassador Karen Pierce as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) prepared to begin work in Syria to investigate the alleged us of chemical weapons in Douma. in Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, SVR, that Williams, 31, was killed because he knew the identity of a Russian mole in GCHQ at Cheltenham, Glos.
The Russians had hoped to recruit Williams – who had been seconded to MI6 – as a double agent by threatening to reveal his fondness for cross-dressing.
Karpichkov says: “Williams had no intention of letting the Russians blackmail him.
“But he was foolish enough to say that he knew the person who tipped them off. The SVR had no alternative but to kill him to protect their agent.”
Karpichkov claims Williams was knocked out with a drugged glass of wine before being injected in an ear with untraceable plant-based poison.
Russia aims to increase spies in Britain. It’s a Cold War escalation SECURITY SOURCE ON PUTIN’S LIKELY PLANS