The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament

“ Whilst it is possible that an improved relationship between Russia and the UK may one day reduce the threat to the UK, it is unrealistic to think that that might happen under the current Russian leadership. It would have to be dependent on Russia ceasing its acts of aggression towards the UK, such as the use of chemical weapons on UK soil. The UK, as a Western democracy, cannot allow Russia to flout the Rules Based International Order without there being commensurate consequences. ”

“ Despite its economic weakness, it nonetheless heavily resources its intelligence services and armed forces, which are disproportionately large and powerful. Moreover, Russia is adept at using its apparent weaknesses to its advantage: for example, its poor national brand and lack of long-term global friends appear to feed its enormous risk appetite – perhaps on the basis that it thinks it has nothing to lose; its lack of democracy and rule of law allows its intelligence agencies to act quickly, without constraint or consideration ”

“ If you believe that the West is run by hypocritical, incompetent, greedy politicians, then it becomes much harder to take any kind of moral high ground about Russia which really is run by very, very bad people. ”

“ The Intelligence Community must equip themselves to tackle the Russian threat, but we must also look beyond the UK itself. The Kremlin has shown a willingness and ability to operate globally to undermine the West, seeking out division and intimidating those who appear isolated from the international community. ”

“ The Government must now seek to establish a protocol with the social media companies to ensure that they take covert hostile state use of their platforms seriously, and have clear timescales within which they commit to removing such material. Government should 'name and shame' those which fail to act. Such a protocol could, usefully, be expanded to encompass the other areas in which action is required from the social media companies, since this issue is not unique to Hostile State Activity. ”

“ The Russian decision-making apparatus is concentrated on Putin and a small group of trusted and secretive advisers (many of whom share Putin's background in the RIS) . The limited number of individuals who are 'in the know' makes decision-making hard to understand, compared with systems where power and influence are dispersed among a great number of political players. Moreover, the President can make swift decisions that even his inner circle are not aware of – further complicating any ability to understand or predict Russian government intent. ”

“ Covert activity against any state carries the potential for conflict, and action against a nuclear hostile state even more so given the risk of escalation into diplomatic, economic or even military conflict. ”

“ The Government recognises that the increase in demand for intelligence to support the campaign against terrorism has meant that the Agencies, amongst others, have been obliged to review their priorities within their own budgets. This process has been carried out professionally and carefully, and the Government will continue to keep the situation under review. It is inevitable that if some areas of activity become relatively more important to the national interest, others become relatively less so and may have less resources devoted to them. ”

“ The clearest requirement for immediate action is for new legislation: the Intelligence Community must be given the tools it needs and be put in the best possible position if it is to tackle this very capable adversary, and this means a new statutory framework to tackle espionage, the illicit financial dealings of the Russian elite and the 'enablers' who support this activity. More broadly, the way forward lies with taking action with our allies ”

“ It is not just the oligarchs either: the arrival of Russian money resulted in a growth industry of enablers – individuals and organisations who manage and lobby for the Russian elite in the UK. Lawyers, accountants, estate agents and PR professionals have played a role, wittingly or unwittingly, in the extension of Russian influence which is often linked to promoting the nefarious interests of the Russian state. ”

“ It appears that Russia considers the UK one of its top Western intelligence targets: while we may not experience the level and type of threat that countries on Russia's borders suffer, witnesses have suggested that we would sit just behind the US and NATO in any priority list. ”

“ In relation to the Agencies and Defence Intelligence, given the difficulties in working against Russia (explored in the next section) , it is particularly important that all sources – HUMINT, SIGINT, MASINT, GEOINT, [6] open source and others – are used to complement each other as much as possible, and that they are used across all aspects of the co-ordinated Russian threat (***) . Given the combined nature of the Russian threat, it is essential that the Agencies' and Defence Intelligence's work on *** is not viewed separately from wider Russian foreign policy and influence efforts. ”

“ With pressures from International Counter-Terrorism work, the Chinese threat, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, we recognise that it is difficult to single out the Russian threat as deserving greater allocation of effort. It is therefore essential that the strategy is right – enabling smarter working and effective co-ordination. ”

“ Russian state interests, working in conjunction with and through criminal private interests, set up a 'buffer' of Westerners who become de facto Russian state agents, many unwittingly, but others with a reason to know exactly what they are doing and for whom. ”

“ Accepting the counter-terrorism pressures on the operational organisations, there is nevertheless a question over the approach taken by the policy departments. We have previously discussed the extent to which economic policy dictated the opening up of the UK to Russian investment. This indicates a failure of the security policy departments to engage with this issue – to the extent that the UK now faces a threat from Russia within its own borders. What appears to have been a somewhat laissez-faire policy approach is less easy to forgive than the response of the busy Agencies. ”

“ And without seeking in any way to imply that DCMS is not capable, or that the Electoral Commission is not a staunch defender of democracy, it is a question of scale and access. DCMS is a small Whitehall policy department and the Electoral Commission is an arm's length body; neither is in the central position required to tackle a major hostile state threat to our democracy. ”

“ Whilst the Russian elite have developed ties with a number of countries in recent years, it would appear that the UK has been viewed as a particularly favourable destination for Russian oligarchs and their money. ”

“ An influence campaign in relation to an election, for example, may use the spreading of disinformation, but may also encompass other tactics such as illicit funding, disruption of electoral mechanics or direct attacks on one of the campaigns (such as 'hack and leak') . Equally, the spreading of disinformation is not necessarily aimed at influencing any individual outcome; it can simply have broad objectives around creating an atmosphere of distrust or otherwise fracturing society. ”

“ Whilst we understand the nervousness around any suggestion that the intelligence and security Agencies might be involved in democratic processes – certainly a fear that is writ large in other countries – that cannot apply when it comes to the protection of those processes. ”

“ Russia's cyber capability, when combined with its willingness to deploy it in a malicious capacity, is a matter of grave concern, and poses an immediate and urgent threat to our national security.
Leading the response 16. The NCSC – part of GCHQ – leads on protecting the UK from cyber attack and, as the authority on the UK's cyber security environment, sharing knowledge and addressing systemic vulnerabilities. It is the Government's interface with industry on cyber security and leads on incident response (for example, in the event of a cyber attack on the UK's CNI) . ”

“ We are grateful to those outside the Intelligence Community – in particular Anne Applebaum, William Browder, Christopher Donnelly, Edward Lucas and Christopher Steele – for volunteering their very substantial expertise on Russia, which provided us with an invaluable foundation for the classified evidence sessions. ”

“ In addition, it seems to have been afforded a rather low priority: it was signed off by the National Security Council only in February 2019, almost three years after the EU referendum campaign and the US presidential election which brought these issues to the fore. In the Committee's view, a foreign power seeking to interfere in our democratic processes – whether it is successful or not – cannot be taken lightly; our democracy is intrinsic to our country's success and well-being and any threat to it must be treated as a serious national security issue by those tasked with defending us. ”

“ One specific issue that a new Espionage Act might address is individuals acting on behalf of a foreign power and seeking to obfuscate this link. The US, in 1938, introduced the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) , which requires anyone other than accredited diplomats – including both US and non-US citizens – who represents the interests of foreign powers in a "political or quasi-political capacity" to register with the Department of Justice, disclosing their relationship with the foreign government and information about related activities and finances. ”

“ Whilst the UK must have its own defensive and offensive capabilities, it must also be prepared to lead international action. In terms of attribution, it is apparent that not everyone is keen to adopt this new approach and to 'call out' Russia on malicious cyber activity. The Government must now leverage its diplomatic relationships to develop a common international approach when it comes to the attribution of malicious cyber activity by Russia and others.
26. There is also a need for a common international approach in relation to Offensive Cyber. ”

“ Examples include:
use of state-owned traditional media: open source studies have shown serious distortions in the coverage provided by Russian state-owned international broadcasters such as RT and Sputnik; [3] 'bots' and 'trolls': open source studies have identified significant activity on social media; 'hack and leak': the US has publicly avowed that Russia conducted 'hack and leak' operations in relation to its presidential election in 2016, and it has been widely alleged that Russia was responsible for a similar attack on the French presidential election in 2017 ”

“ Since then, there have been a number of attempts to repair relations between Western countries and Russia (for example, the US 'Russian reset' in 2009, and the Prime Minister's visit to Moscow in 2011 in which he expressed a desire to rebuild the relationship) , but the events of recent years show that none has had any impact on Russian intent, and therefore on the security threat that Russia poses.
2. Russia is simultaneously both very strong and very weak. ”

“ In this respect, we have already questioned whether the Electoral Commission has sufficient powers to ensure the security of democratic processes where hostile state threats are involved; if it is to tackle foreign interference, then it must be given the necessary legislative powers. ”

“ Russia has sought to employ organised crime groups to supplement its cyber skills: SIS has observed that "this comes to the very muddy nexus between business and corruption and state power in Russia". ”

“ We know from both intelligence and open source that people are approaching financial advisers about how to get their money out of Britain as a result of these Unexplained Wealth Orders, and I think you will see them being used more going forward. ”

“ PR firms, charities, political interests, academia and cultural institutions were all willing beneficiaries of Russian money, contributing to a 'reputation laundering' process. In brief, Russian influence in the UK is 'the new normal', and there are a lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene, and accepted because of their wealth. ”

“ Policy responsibility for Hostile State Activity sits in the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. This appears unusual: the Home Office might seem a more natural home for it, as it would allow the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism's (OSCT) experience on counter-terrorism matters to be brought to bear against the hostile state threat. We understand that Government's view is that Hostile State Activity is a cross-cutting threat and therefore it makes sense for the Cabinet Office to hold responsibility ”

“ A large private security industry has developed in the UK to service the needs of the Russian elite, in which British companies protect the oligarchs and their families, seek kompromat [1] on competitors, and on occasion help launder money through offshore shell companies and fabricate 'due diligence' reports, while lawyers provide litigation support. ”

“ These provisions are sometimes referred to as the UK's 'Magnitsky' legislation: the so-called US 'Magnitsky Act' was passed in 2012 in order to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. This has provisions allowing the US government to act globally to freeze the assets of individual human rights offenders, and to ban them from entering the US. Since then a number of other countries, including Canada and the Baltic states, have implemented analogous legislation. ”

“ We recognise the need to get legislation right. Nevertheless, it is very clear that the Official Secrets Act regime is not fit for purpose and the longer this goes unrectified, the longer the Intelligence Community's hands are tied. ”