Defense minister accuses Russia of planning strategic ‘attack’ on Britain
The strained relationship between Russia and Britain has gotten worse with Britain’s defense minister, Gavin Williamson, warning that Russia was looking to damage the British economy by attacking its infrastructure, a move he said could cause “thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths”.
Prime Minister Theresa May last year accused Moscow of military aggression and in December, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said there was evidence showing Russian meddling in Western elections.
Britain has also scrambled jets in recent months to intercept Russian jets near the United Kingdom’s airspace.
The Telegraph quoted as Williamson, as saying that “the plan for the Russians won’t be for landing craft to appear in the South Bay in Scarborough, and off Brighton Beach”.
He said: “What they are looking at doing is they are going to be thinking ‘How can we just cause so much pain to Britain?’. Damage its economy, rip its infrastructure apart, actually cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths, but actually have an element of creating total chaos within the country.”
Williamson said Russia was look at ways to attack Britain.
“Why would they keep photographing and looking at power stations, why are they looking at the interconnectors that bring so much electricity and so much energy into our country,” he was quoted as saying.
“If you could imagine the domestic and industrial chaos that this would actually cause. What they would do is cause the chaos and then step back.”
“This is the real threat that I believe the country is facing at the moment,” he said.
