{"id":743773,"date":"2026-08-20T06:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T06:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/743773\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T06:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T06:40:14","slug":"putin-is-threatening-britain-again-this-time-he-could-be-cornered-enough-to-do-something-reckless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/743773\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin is threatening Britain again \u2013 this time he could be cornered enough to do something reckless"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Kremlin<\/a>\u2019s reaction to news that British-built long-range drones<\/a> had been used in the latest Ukrainian<\/a> attacks deep inside Russian territory was predictably furious<\/a>. And once again it came with a threat of retaliation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United Kingdom is acting as an accomplice and co-perpetrator of the bloody crimes and terrorist attacks<\/a> committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis,\u201d thundered the Russian Embassy in London in a statement. \u201cLondon\u2019s actions will inevitably carry consequences for which it will have to answer \u2026 The deeper its involvement in<\/a> the conflict and the greater its support of Kiev\u2019s terrorist machinery, the higher the price it will pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PutinPutin has threatened the UK with \u2018serious consequences\u2019 after British-built drones were used to attack deep inside Russian territory (Reuters)<\/p>\n

This is by no means the first time blustering threats of this sort have been directed at the UK. Soon after Boris Johnson emerged as one of the most energetic cheerleaders for Ukraine in the wake of Putin\u2019s February 2022 invasion, Kremlin media began to issue regular, blood-curdling warnings to London. <\/p>\n

Firebrand pro-war TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov spoke often and fondly of nuking the UK with Sarmat missiles \u2013 which he was convinced would sink the British Isles beneath the waves. \u201cGive the British three days to learn to breathe underwater,\u201d Solovyov ranted. His Rossiya 1 colleague Olga Skabeeva regularly hosted guests who \u2013 flatteringly for our security services \u2013 often spoke of Whitehall and MI6 as the true evil masterminds behind all Western policy. Such accusations were followed, more often than not, by the usual threats to nuke Perfidious Albion into non-existence. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see why the UK is the focus for the Kremlin\u2019s attack dogs. Firstly, Russians have a long and deep love-hate relationship with Britain<\/a>\u2019s legendary spies and fictional detectives. Secondly, compared to the US, the UK is unimportant and can be kicked about with impunity \u2013 whereas the Kremlin has an important and complicated on-again, off-again relationship<\/a> with Donald Trump\u2019s White House. <\/p>\n

But the problem for Britain\u2019s security chiefs is that not all Russia\u2019s threats are empty. Ken McCallum, director-general of MI5 warned in his annual threat update last October that \u201cmy teams are routinely uncovering attempts by state actors<\/a> to commission surveillance, sabotage, arson or physical violence, right here in the UK\u201d. He also warned that Russian spy agencies were hiring thugs online to do their dirty work, \u201cinstructing them via encrypted apps, and offering payment in cryptocurrencies\u201d.<\/p>\n

These were the kinds of desperadoes who were responsible for the first major Kremlin-orchestrated physical attack on US soil since the Ukraine invasion, when a warehouse in Leyton, London, tied to a Ukrainian-owned business went up in flames in March 2024<\/a>. Of the seven people charged with aggravated arson and accepting payment from a foreign intelligence agency, several admitted carrying out the attack on behalf of Russia. Another fire was started at a DHL transport warehouse in Minworth, Birmingham, in July 2024 when a package detonated after arriving from Vilnius. Lithuanian prosecutors uncovered a Europe-wide plot by Russia\u2019s GU military intelligence to sabotage DHL centres with similar parcel bombs in Leipzig and Warsaw.<\/p>\n

\"2024:2024: Firefighters tackle a blaze following a Kremlin-orchestrated attack on a warehouse in Leyton, London (London Fire Brigade)<\/p>\n

Other plots thwarted by MI5 include the so-called \u201cMinions\u201d case when a senior Russian espionage officer<\/a> recruited a gang of dim-bulb Eastern European crooks in London with the intention of assassinating journalists and activists hostile to the Kremlin. Another involved a gang tasked with organising arson attacks on Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s car and former residence. Two men were convicted after being recruited by a Russian-speaking online handler<\/a> who was linked to a pro-Kremlin sabotage network, although the criminal proceedings did not establish that the Russian state itself ordered the attacks<\/p>\n

So far, so pathetic. It\u2019s not clear what the Kremlin\u2019s aggravated hooliganism is intended to achieve \u2013 except to confirm how powerless, stupid and desperate the successors of the once-mighty KGB have become. And yet there are very real, and very much more dangerous, weapons in Russia\u2019s covert arsenal that lie just a couple of levels of escalation away. <\/p>\n

\"\u2018We\u2018We see you\u2019: a Russian spy-ship was spotted lurking in British waters earlier this year (UK MOD\/Crown copyright)<\/p>\n

In April, the Yantar \u2013 a Russian spy-ship posing as an oceanographical vessel \u2013 was spotted lurking along the British coast. Such vessels were \u201cdesigned to survey underwater infrastructure during peacetime, and sabotage it in conflict\u201d, said then-defence secretary John Healey, directly warning the Kremlin that \u201cwe see you, we see your activity<\/a> over our cables and pipelines. And you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Britain and Ireland\u2019s electricity, internet and gas supplies all depend on a network of fragile and unprotected undersea cables that can easily be blown up or simply cut by dragging anchors \u2013 as sporadic supposedly \u201caccidental\u201d damage to cables between Finland and Estonia in recent years has shown. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s also been a disturbing escalation last week when a small drone carrying explosives was intercepted at Leipzig airport in Germany<\/a> \u2013 a major logistics hub for the international shipping company DHL as well as Ukrainian-operated aircraft. While there\u2019s no smoking gun linking this attempted attack to Russia (yet), blowing up a civilian aircraft at a European airport would come very close to an act of war. <\/p>\n

There are very real, and very much more dangerous, weapons in Russia\u2019s covert arsenal that lie just a couple of levels of escalation away<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s Britain, not Germany, that many Russian \u201cZ-bloggers\u201d consider a combatant in the Ukraine war. That\u2019s because the UK is the only one of Kyiv\u2019s international allies which has allowed its weaponry – first Storm Shadow cruise missiles and, now, BAe-made Nyan drones<\/a> \u2013 to be used in Ukrainian attacks inside Russia itself. Germany and the US, by contrast, have refused to allow their ATACMs rocket artillery or Taurus cruise missiles to be used in deep strikes precisely for fear of triggering escalation, restricting their weaponry solely to battlefields in Russian-occupied Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Does that make Britain a combatant against Russia \u2013 and, by extension, a legitimate military target? The Kremlin faces a dilemma when it comes to responding to the Nyan strikes<\/a>. Militarily, the small British drone makes little difference to Ukraine\u2019s world-leading military drone production, which is expected to reach 7 million units by the end of this year. Yet at the same time the UK is the biggest cash contributor to Ukraine\u2019s war effort now that Trump has cut off US funding almost entirely. Would some kind of attack on Britain scare Andrew Burnham\u2019s new government into pulling back its support for Kyiv \u2013 or would it, conversely, unite Europe and Nato into intensifying and escalating its support for Ukraine? <\/p>\n

Burnham responded defiantly to the Kremlin\u2019s threats, insisting that the \u201cUK is doing what it has long said it would do, which is to support Ukraine 100 per cent against this illegal war led by Vladimir Putin<\/a>.\u201d He described the use of British-made Nyan jet-propelled drones as \u201csupport so that Ukraine can defend itself\u201d and vowed that Britain was not a \u201cfair-weather friend \u2026 and that won\u2019t change\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"BurnhamBurnham reiterated Britain\u2019s support for Ukraine after the Kremlin\u2019s threats (PA)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s easy to say as long as Russian interventions remain on the level of minor arson attacks ineptly executed by mercenary morons. But what if the kind of assassination plot that German police uncovered against Armin Papperger, CEO of Germany\u2019s Rheinmetall arms corporation, in 2024, becomes a deadly reality on British soil? Or if a DHL cargo plane explodes on the runway at Birmingham Airport, or the vital connectors linking the UK and France\u2019s electrical grids are \u201caccidentally\u201d severed by a tanker\u2019s seven-ton anchor? If the Kremlin\u2019s threatened \u201cprice\u201d is a direct challenge to escalate all the way to the brink of a shooting war, will Burnham be able to persuade the British people that their country should go to war over a disputed sliver of Ukraine? <\/p>\n

So far, such an escalation remains remote \u2013 but only because Putin believes that his army\u2019s slow advance across Donbas means that he will eventually crush Ukraine\u2019s resistance. However, as I wrote last month for The Independent<\/a>, trouble for Putin is much closer to home, with increasing tensions inside Russia\u2019s elite between business interests exhausted by the war and those securocrats who owe power and incomes to continued conflict. <\/p>\n

A cornered, desperate Putin will be far more dangerous, and more unpredictable and last month two senior Kremlin sources, one of whom meets regularly with the president, were quoted as saying they predicted a \u201chigh probability\u201d of escalation in the coming months.<\/p>\n

Two things are clear \u2013 one, that Britain is extremely vulnerable and unprepared for attack<\/a>, whether it\u2019s in cyberspace or on its critical infrastructure. The other is that Russian spies and soldiers have been methodically probing our weaknesses, ready to strike if and when the Kremlin grows sufficiently reckless to give the order. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kremlin\u2019s reaction to news that British-built long-range drones had been used in the latest Ukrainian attacks deep…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-743773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}