MI6 chief Alex Younger will outline how, after the attack on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal, Britain’s allies in Europe and the US ordered the biggest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War.
The chief of Britain’s foreign intelligence service will warn the Kremlin on Monday not to underestimate the West after a brazen nerve agent attack on a retired double agent in England stoked fears about Russian covert activity abroad.
In his second major speech since being named in 2014 to head the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Alex Younger will say Russia has a stance of “perpetual confrontation” with the West.
Younger will outline how, after the attack on Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who betrayed dozens of agents to MI6, Britain’s allies in Europe and the United States took its part and ordered the biggest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War.
Britain identified the nerve agent deployed in the town of Salisbury as Novichok, a highly potent group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet military in the 1970s and 1980s.
