Often the greatest security risks are hiding in plain sight. The Russia of Vladimir Putin is so shameless in its operations to undermine Western democracy, it seeks ever more inventive ways of advertising its wares.
In previous decades, it was about bumping off critics of the regime, performatively with poison. “Look everyone, look what we can do,” was the message. “And you could be next, if you’re not careful.” In recent years, the Kremlin has employed a multi-pronged, anything-goes approach. This has taken the form of cyber attacks, disinformation, bribery and other forms of societal manipulation – and old-fashioned thuggery.
It seems to take something ridiculously amateurish to capture the public imagination: two twenty-somethings – a Ukrainian national and a Ukrainian-born Romanian – convicted this week of arson for setting alight a car once owned by the prime minister. Days after that attack in May last year, they set ablaze two homes, including one rented out to Keir Starmer’s sister-in-law.
The prosecution told the Old Bailey the men were recruited online by a Russian-speaking Telegram user called “El Money”. They were promised large amounts of cryptocurrency in payment but knew nothing about the bigger political picture. The court was told that the defendants did not demonstrate a political or ideological motivation.
According to a BBC Panorama documentary, evidence suggests that “El Money” is a 23-year-old Russian diplomat by the name of Evgeny Lyukshin, the son of a senior official who has been schooled in information warfare.
This is just the latest in a string of tawdry crimes carried out by often petty criminals on behalf of the Kremlin or the FSB intelligence agency, or both – most of the time (but not always) they act in unison. The choice of perpetrators is deliberate. The idea is to cause trouble in broad daylight to those who have stood up to Vladimir Putin, while maintaining an ostentatiously spurious distance.
More than four years into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Starmer has played an important role in galvanising Europe, alongside the German Chancellor and French President, at a time when the United States is at best ambivalent.
Yet, in terms of the Putin threat closer to home, the British public still seems in denial. Whereas Friedrich Merz has strong-armed citizens brought up on pacificism into a trillion-euro investment into Germany’s armed forces, ensuring that they hit the new Nato target of 3.5 per cent of defence spending by 2029, Starmer has failed in that endeavour – leading to the resignation of his respected defence secretary, John Healey. Britain is miles away from being battle-ready against Russia or any other hostile state.
Underlying that reluctance to spend is a reluctance to square with voters. Shortly before Healey quit, Lord Robertson, one of his predecessors at the Ministry of Defence and lead author of the Strategic Defence Review, denounced Starmer’s Government for an abrogation of responsibility. Would an administration led by Andy Burnham have a more acute awareness of the dangers? In foreign and security policy, the prime minister-in-waiting is untested.
A host of security experts have pointed out that the nature of warfare nowadays suggests that Britain – along with other Western states – is already in direct conflict with Russia. The term previously used was “hybrid warfare”, but that’s been largely dispensed with because some believe it plays down a co-ordinated strategy of subversion.
Now it’s called, the “grey zone” and, whether it’s internet takedowns, cyber-attacks, assassinations, arson, bribery, corruption or disinformation, it is happening in front of our eyes. In a recent speech, the director of the usually secretive communications intelligence agency GCHQ warned of Russian activity “stretching from the seabed to cyberspace”. Anne Keast-Butler accused Moscow of “relentlessly targeting critical infrastructure, democratic processes, supply chains and public trust” in Britain.
Acts of sabotage range from cutting undersea cables, to planting explosives on railway lines, to jamming GPS equipment on aircraft carrying civilians and government ministers. One of the most spectacular recent cases – at least among those made known to the public – was a co-ordinated set of attacks on courier companies. Several self-igniting packages being carried by DHL and other firms were detonated in the summer of 2024 in Poland, Germany and the UK.
It was only a matter of good fortune that one such device accidently caught on fire at Leipzig airport just as it was being loaded onto a plane. In March, European investigators said 22 suspects had been identified in Lithuania and Poland, suspected of having been “working on behalf of the military-intelligence service of the Russian Federation”.
Across the Baltics and Nordics, citizens have long been encouraged to prepare for the worst. The concept of “total defence” is embedded in society, ranging from military service to annual reserve duty and stockpiling for an evacuation. It is not done to frighten but reflects a mature relationship between state and society in managing risk.
Brits, perhaps by dint of geography, more likely through history and complacency, still tend to believe they have a professional military that can do the dirty work for them. It will take more than a few hoodlums setting fire to a car to wake them out of their slumber.
John Kampfner is author of Braver New World, published by Atlantic Books at £22.
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