"Russia thinks they're at war with us and we don't", ex-MI6 boss says as Putin escalates Ukraine retaliation
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Sir Alex Younger KCMG, former chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), believes Putin is justifying inference in Britain due to its ongoing support of Ukraine. He discussed how Moscow is engaging in hybrid warfare - committing actions which tread a fine line between peace and war - during a defence select committee meeting in parliament this morning (January 21).
He told the panel of politicians: “The asymmetry in the relationship with Russia is of course all about capabilities and systems but fundamentally it’s about the fact that they think they’re at war with us, and we don’t think we’re at war with them. Putin has conceived of this idea of horizontal escalation, which he believes is a reciprocal response to what we’re doing in Ukraine, completely erroneous and false, but that is how he looks at it. That dictates what they do. They are actively using capabilities now just below the threshold of war to undermine our capacity to resist their agenda.”
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The UK is currently leading an operation with Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) members and Nato allies to monitor the Russian shadow fleet. This follows undersea cables running from Finland to Estonia in the Baltic Sea being damaged. Dr Margriet Drent, policy advisor at the counter hybrid unit for the Ministry of Defence in The Netherlands. told the committee during an earlier session that threats like this have been rising in the North Sea and Baltic Sea.
Incidents of hybrid warfare or grey zone warfare, including the targeting of critical infrastructure, disinformation campaigns on social media, cyber attacks and other nefarious actions, has been a regular tool in the arsenal of UK opponents.
Mr Younger said the UK faces threats from “limited and recognisable" actors, including Russia, North Korea, Iran and to some extent, China. He added that Beijing doesn’t see themselves as being at war with the UK, but believes they should be allowed “to rise unfettered” to pursue its own ideals - its pressure on Taiwan’s democracy being a textbook example of hybrid warfare in action.


Lincoln Jopp, Conservative MP for Spelthorne and former colonel in the British Army, asked what characteristics these nations have that engage in hybrid warfare against the UK. Sir Younger said British national values are being used against us, one of them having a set of laws and boundaries. When asked if the UK took its eye off Russia, Sir Younger said Moscow has been slowly increasing its hybrid threat, rising the harassment and subversion to normalise a new situation.
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Hide Ad“We in western liberal democracies organise around the principle that war is different to peace,” he added. “It’s permissible for governments to do things in war time that would not be permissible in peace time. We also organise our response around whether it is domestic or international. We have a Home Office and a Foreign Office. The legal capabilities or permissions that exist for services like mine are different in the domestic space as to the foreign space.
“These are all here for a reason and they are part of the checks and balances of our governing system. If you’re from a political dispensation that just doesn’t do that stuff and doesn’t have political accountability, and can move at the speed of the autocratic whim rather than democratic will, then you have potential advantages. You can cross boundaries which have the effect of war that does not cross our threshold in the knowledge we would be constrained by our response.”
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