MI6 Chief Accuses Russia of ‘Stunningly Reckless’ Sabotage Campaign in Europe Against Ukraine’s Allies

Richard Moore, the head of the UK's MI6 foreign intelligence service, has said that Russia is conducting a ‘stunningly reckless’ sabotage campaign against Ukraine's Western allies and that spies are working to ensure that the consequences do not spiral out of control.

Moore said this in a speech in Paris to diplomats and intelligence officials, AP reports.

‘We have recently uncovered a spectacularly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe, even as Putin and his aides resort to nuclear weapons rattling to spread fear about the consequences of helping Ukraine,’ Moore said in a speech to diplomats and intelligence officials in France.

Also, in a message directed in part to US President-elect Donald Trump, MI6 chief Richard Moore said that a Russian victory in Ukraine would threaten the security of America as well as Europe.

The UK's top intelligence officer said that his agency and its French counterparts are working to reduce the dangerous escalation by ‘calibrating the risk and informing the decisions of our respective governments’ in response to Putin's ‘combination of boastfulness and aggression’.

He also believes that if Putin succeeds in turning Ukraine into a vassal state, he will not stop there.

‘Our security - British, French, European and transatlantic - will be at risk,’ Moore added.

According to the British intelligence officer, the cost of supporting Ukraine is well known, but the cost of not supporting it would be incomparably higher: ‘If Putin succeeds, China will weigh the consequences, North Korea will be emboldened, and Iran will become even more dangerous.’

Nicolas Lerner, head of the DGSE, agreed that ‘the collective security of the whole of Europe is now under threat in Ukraine’.

European and Western intelligence officials have linked Russia to several planned attacks in Europe, including an alleged plot to burn down Ukrainian businesses in London and incendiary devices in packages on DHL cargo planes. 

A cargo plane of the German logistics company DHL crashed near Vilnius International Airport in Lithuania on Monday morning, killing at least one person. The cause of the crash was not known, but Lithuanian police chief Arunas Paulauskas did not rule out terrorism as a motive.

Earlier, German security authorities warned of ‘unconventional incendiary devices’ being sent by unknown persons through freight providers. Therefore, the security authorities sent a warning to aviation and logistics companies. 

The Polish prosecutor's office also claims that the parcel arsons in the logistics centres of courier companies that took place this summer in Poland, Germany and the UK were an attempt to disrupt flights to the US and Canada. The UK says it was the work of Russian agents. 

In July, a fire broke out for three days in the German city of Leipzig in a container that was to be loaded onto a DHL plane. There was also a fire at a transport company near Warsaw. A similar fire occurred in Minworth, UK. The head of Britain's domestic intelligence agency MI5, Ken McCallum, said that ‘arson, sabotage and more dangerous acts of increasing recklessness’ were carried out by Russian secret agents. According to him, this happened after the UK helped Ukraine in the war with Russia.