Russian Intelligence Warning Against British Sabotage Plan

Aug. 9—Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, issued a warning Aug. 4 against British plots to create a casus belli against Russian shipping. “Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service has been receiving reports indicating that the UK intelligence agencies are planning to involve NATO allies to launch a massive raid on the so-called shadow fleet,” it said in a statement. “London intends to use a resonating incident with one or several tankers for launching this campaign. This plan provides for a major act of sabotage so that the resulting damage can be used as the pretext for Russia’s oil shipments to be dubbed a threat to international maritime navigation.” London intends to use the Ukrainian security services “to do the dirty work” and take the blame if anything goes wrong.

The statement cited two options that the Brits are considering:

“First—staging an accident with an undesirable tanker in a narrow spot along maritime navigation routes, such as in a strait. London believes that an oil spill or the fact that the accident results in blocking the waterway would give NATO countries ‘sufficient grounds’ for creating a precedent to carry out special and extraordinary inspections of vessels in a pretended move to check them for compliance with navigation safety rules and environmental standards.

“Second—setting a tanker on fire while it unloads its cargo at a port of a country friendly to Russia. In this case, the fire is expected to cause serious damage to port infrastructure and to spread to other ships, which would require an international investigation.”

“The UK plans to choose the right moment for the attack so that it creates a ripple effect in the media for pressuring Donald Trump administration to compromise its national interests and forcing Washington to go all out in imposing harsh secondary sanctions on the buyers of Russian energy resources by casting them as having indirectly contributed to this tragedy,” the SVR warns.