Russia is inflaming the debate on immigration in Britain as part of “increasing ambitions to disrupt our way of life”, counter-terror police leaders and experts have warned.
Using a combination of intelligence agencies, paid agents and covert influence tactics on social media, the Kremlin is said to be intensifying efforts to spark division and deepen distrust in the UK government and institutions.
Laurence Taylor, the head of UK Counter Terrorism Policing, warned that the interference was being felt at a time when the threat from extreme right-wing terrorism driven by “anti-immigration sentiment” was rising.
“It’s our belief that polarised views in society are having a direct impact on that increased threat,” he told a press conference last week. “We are seeing what we would describe as wedge tactics from foreign states who will be looking at opportunities to create division in our communities.”
Vicki Evans, the Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said the activity was part of the Kremlin’s “increasing ambitions to disrupt our way of life”.
“They’re intent on identifying willing volunteers to peddle the Russian narrative,” she added. “Their ultimate goal is destabilising our democracy, sowing division and chaos, and disturbing our peace.”
Bribes and unwitting influencers
Evans cited the case of Nathan Gill, the former Ukip MEP and ex-leader of Reform in Wales who was jailed in November for taking bribes to make pro-Russian media appearances and speeches in the European Parliament. A police investigation into unidentified individuals related to Gill’s case is ongoing.
Nathan Gill, the former leader of Reform UK in Wales, was jailed in November for taking payments to make pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament (Photo: James Manning/PA Wire)As well as politicians, security officials say Russia has directly and indirectly paid right-wing influencers on social media to spread messages on migration and other issues that align with the Kremlin’s political goals.
In 2024, the US Department of Justice charged two employees from Russian state broadcaster RT with what it called “a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to US audiences with hidden Russian government messaging”.
A Canada-based company was allegedly paid to employ several high-profile right-wing online influencers to make videos on immigration and other topics that garnered millions of views on TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube.
The influencers involved, some of whom were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, said they were unaware of the plot and had been deceived by the intermediary company.
The indictment in the case said the scheme started following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when sanctions forced RT to stop formal operations in the US, UK and EU and caused it to create an “empire of covert projects” designed to shape public opinion among Western audiences.
Laurence Taylor, the head of UK Counter Terrorism Policing, said ‘wedge tactics’ were being used to polarise British society (Photo: Sarah Collier/PA Wire)The UK has separately sanctioned three PR agencies which it said were “responsible for a vast malign online network” spreading fake posts, counterfeit documents and deepfake material in English, German and French through counterfeit news and government websites.
Andy Pryce, the former head of countering disinformation at the Foreign Office, said social media had increased Russia’s ability to influence public debate and reach specific audiences, both through the use of bots or fake accounts, and paid assets.
“There will be a mixture of individuals they pay, unwitting multipliers and people who just believe what they’re saying,” he told The i Paper. “They use a variety of different means, and they’ve got better at it.”
Seizing on high-profile events
Mr Pryce, who is now an expert at the Centre for Information Resilience, said that as well as directly seeding narratives that suit its aims, Russia “amplifies folks in the UK who pursue anti-immigrant policies” and seizes upon high-profile events like the murder of Henry Nowak and Belfast stabbing to “shape perceptions”.
“Some of that activity will be directly ordered from the presidential administration in the Kremlin,” he added. “Some of it is by people who know roughly what is being looked for, and then will go seeking reward, recognition and advancement.”
One suspected example is the person behind a series of arson attacks that struck Keir Starmer’s former homes and car last year, who was identified by the BBC as a 23-year-old Russian diplomat who studied information warfare at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, but was not thought to be under direct Kremlin instruction.
Before setting fire to Keir Starmer’s former properties, Roman Lavrynovych was paid to put up leaflets for a fake far-right group targeting migrants and Muslims in the UK (Photo: Metropolitan Police)The same anonymous Telegram account used to commission the fires previously paid the arsonist to put up leaflets in London advertising a fake far-right group called “Direct Action UK”.
While posting a steady stream of hate speech against Muslims and calling for the “remigration” of non-whites from Britain on its social media accounts, the group was offering £100 in cryptocurrency for an anti-Muslim graffiti “competition”.
Dr Lukasz Olejnik, a visiting senior research fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, said that Russian disinformation efforts were not necessarily about “making Britons pro-Russian, but more about influencing in a way that makes the UK feel dysfunctional, hypocritical, exhausted, divided”.
He added: “For Russia, it suffices to identify divisive issues to pour gasoline on, intensify them, and benefit from the resulting chaos.”
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