Former UK Spy Chief: We’re At war

By Staff, Agencies

The former head of the British spy agency MI6, Richard Dearlove, cautioned that his country is engaged in a “gray war” with Russia, but neither the authorities nor the public are taking the situation seriously enough.

In an interview with Politico, Dearlove said that he UK military isn’t getting enough money to be able to counter the “threats” posed by Moscow and Beijing.

Dearlove led the British Secret Intelligence Service between 1999 and 2004.

The statement followed last week’s announcement of the UK’s budget for the next financial year, in which there was no increase in defense spending. It remains at 2% of the country’s GDP.

“If you stopped anyone in the street here in the UK and asked them whether they thought Britain is at war, they’d look at you as if you were mad. But we are at war — we’re engaged in a gray war with Russia, and I am trying to remind people of that,” the former spy chief said.

The British authorities have “got to make some tough choices, and I’m afraid the tough choices are in front of us right now. We should be spending at least 2.5%” on defense, he insisted.

“We urgently need to be building more ships. We need a much bigger navy. And we need more boots on the ground, for God’s sake,” Dearlove stressed.

Last month, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov accused the UK of being “directly involved” in the conflict between Moscow and Ukraine. He was reacting to a report in The Times which claimed that the head of the UK armed forces, Admiral Tony Radakin, had “helped the Ukrainians with the strategy to destroy Russian ships and open up the Black Sea.” According to Peskov, it is “no secret” for Moscow that the British “provide different forms of support” to Kiev such as “people on the ground and intelligence.”

In February, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the UK has been “even more aggressive, more elaborate in its provocative assertiveness” towards Moscow than any other Western nation during the conflict.