'People have to wake up': Ex spy chief warns Russian sabotage 'already happening' in Europe

13 September 2024, 18:47 | Updated: 13 September 2024, 21:58

The former head of MI6 has told LBC that "grey conflict" is currently being employed by Russia across mainland Europe, explaining that UK citizens should be prepared for "serious inconvenience in our daily lives".

Explaining that "Russia already thinks its at war with the West", Sir Richard Dearlove - who was widely known as 'C' within the intelligence services - highlighted that communications outages are set to become increasingly common.

"I think people have got to wake up to this - and I think it’s probably going to get worse, because this is seen in Russia as an escalation of the conflict, when all we’re doing is responding to Russian escalation," he said.

Speaking with Tom Swarbrick at Drive, Mr Dearlove highlighted that rather than all-out war, Russia continues to operate in what he calls a "grey area".

"Grey conflict" refers to logistical and operational sabotage on a lesser scale than direct military conflict.

He explained this namely entails "cutting cables" and causing "engineered breakdowns" that could affect the UK's national infrastructure.

It comes as the Royal Navy and RAF were forced to shadowed Russian ships through the English Channel on Friday in what appeared to be a show of force by Russia.

HMS Iron Duke and HMS Tyne were deployed to track four Russian vessels through UK waters.

Sir Richard Dearlove speaks to Tom Swarbrick | Watch in full

"I don’t want to be alarmist, I’m being realist," he insisted, explaining that "Russian military intelligence service have trained specifically to do these sort of acts."

"They have the capability and the skill to do that - and I think that is the problem," he told Tom Swarbrick of Russia.

"It may mean some quite serious inconvenience and problems in their daily lives, if, let’s say, we have a problem with critical national infrastructure," he told LBC.

"Let’s say an international cable under the sea is cut, it might mean a breakdown in international communications, it might mean a fire on an industrial estate where there’s a factory doing something in conjunction with armourments manufacturing."

Recent days have seen an increasing escalation in tensions between the UK, US and Russia.

It comes as the Russian president expelled six UK diplomats on Friday over what the Foreign Office has claims are "baseless" spying charges.

Read more: Royal Navy warships shadow Russian submarine in the Channel as four Kremlin vessels enter UK waters

Read more: Vladimir Putin 'unlikely' to hit back if West gives green light to target sites in Russia

Commenting on the recent escalation in tensions between Russia and the UK, as well as its allies, Mr Dearlove said Putin's ongoing troubles in Ukraine are currently his priority.

"Is he really going to start a war with NATO? No. But 'grey conflict'? Yes. And underhand activity? Yes," he confirmed.

"He’s not mad. But he’s behaving in an extreme fashion," he said of Putin's comments amid an apparent escalation in tensions between Russia and the West.

"We’re seeing it already - there is evidence of sabotage attacks in Germany, there are similar incidents in France," he said.

"There was a plot to assassinate one of the heads of the biggest armourment companies in Germany - which was detected by German security services, the BFE - it’s already happening."

It comes as LBC was told that Vladimir Putin is unlikely to hit back at Britain and the West if it gives the green light for Ukraine to target sites in Russia, senior defence figures believe.

Last night the Russian leader warned that they would be "at war" if they chose to give it the go ahead.President Putin said: “This substantially changes the very essence, the nature of the conflict.

“If that is the case, we will take corresponding decisions based on the threats that will be created to us.”