Tycoon warns Putin agents are in UK and ‘ready to attack again’ | World | News
Vladimir Putin’s first tool to attack Britain was the GRU behind the Salisbury poisonings (Image: Getty)
A Russian businessman has warned that Vladimir Putin’s agents are in the UK and ready to launch an attack. Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky said the Russian President will attack Britain by every possible means as Moscow sees the country as its main enemy in Europe.
An exiled Russian businessman has warned that Ukraine’s European allies are the target of a hybrid attack from Russia, warning that covert actions are already taking place in the UK. Mr Khodorkovsky first vehicle Putin’scommand lies with the Kremlin’s GRU military intelligence service.
GRU agents attempted to assassinate former Russian spy Sergei Skripal with the nerve agent novichok in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in 2018.
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They poisoned Mr. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, but they both survived. However, Dawn Sturgess, a mother of three, died after the attempt.
Mr Khodorkovsky said the second option for Putin to attack Britain involved a network of agents, including members of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the Soviet Union’s KGB.
The third option, which Mr. Khodorkovsky identified in an interview SunIt is to use British criminals.
He said this was the cheapest and weakest option but could be quite successful, adding that it was still used in the UK.
In October, two men, Dylan Earl and Jake Reeves, were sentenced to a total of 29 years in prison for an arson attack on a Ukrainian-owned business in east London.
They became the first people to be prosecuted under the National Security Act 2023 after nearly £1 million worth of damage was caused when two units were set on fire in Leyton on March 20, 2024.
Earl was in contact with Russia’s Wagner Group before the arson attack. He and Reeves recruited three men, Nii Mensah, Jakeem Rose, and Ugnius Asmena, to carry out the attack.
There were also plans to bomb a restaurant in Mayfair and kidnap the restaurant’s owner, Russian dissident Evgeny Chichvarkin.
Mr Khodorkovsky said Britain needed to prepare for new attacks and laughed at the idea that Putin could be ousted by his own elite.
He was speaking before Ukraine launched one of its largest drone attacks on Russia, which left four people dead.
The Russian defense ministry said 556 drones were destroyed overnight, while the Ukrainian air force said 287 drones were launched by the Russian side until Sunday, May 17.
