‘UK-Russia relationship deteriorating’
THE Russian ambassador to the UK said he has not seen Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab for more than a year amid rising tensions.
It comes after Mr Raab said the UK and US were determined to stand together against what he described as Russia’s “malign behaviour” following a major cyber attack on the West. Andrey Kelin was summoned to the Foreign Office to be told the UK will continue to work “to call out counter malign operations” by Moscow’s spies. Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Mr Kelin said: “If Dominic Raab is really seeing how Russia interferes or demolish democracy, I am ready to discuss it with him. But I haven’t seen Secretary Raab for more than a year. When I [came] here a year and some months ago, I was full of aspirations that we can do better but our relations [have] become worse.”
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said it had been assessed that it was “highly likely” that Russia’s foreign intelligence agency SVR was behind the so-called SolarWinds hack.
The compromise of the SolarWinds IT services firm – discovered last December – is thought to be one of the most serious cyber espionage attacks suffered by the US.