Kremlin agents targeting Russians in UK

It has been reported that MI5 has quietly stepped up the security protection offered to potential Kremlin targets living in the UK in the aftermath of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury in 2018.

In an interview given by two senior MI5 officers to Sky News, the security agency warned that the Russian state continues to take ‘quite an active interest’ in a handful of individuals in the UK, prompting the need to take more active measures involving the police and other agencies.

Speaking off camera, an officer known only as Tom, is responsible for running the domestic spy agency’s Russian counter-espionage desk, said: “The reason we have a very developed understanding of the people at risk and the mitigations that I’ve described in place is because we know that the Russian state continues to take an interest in people here who we deem to be at risk.”

Those deemed to be at risk are likely to include former agents such as Skripal and other formerly well connected Russians, as well as non-Russian nationals who are deemed serious irritants to the Kremlin.

Last year, MI5 and the other UK spy agencies were accused of taking their ‘eye off the ball’ when it came to the threat posed by the Kremlin in the highly critical Russia report produced by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee.