Vladimir Putin might commit another Salisbury-style attack on UK soil, an exiled Russian billionaire with knowledge about the Kremlin elite has warned. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oil tycoon who spent 10 years in Siberian prison and is now a leading figure in Russian diaspora opposition circles, has urged the UK Government to adopt a more aggressive tactic against the Kremlin.
The Putin enemy, who claims to have good knowledge of Russia‘s elite, said that Donald Trump gave Putin a « window of opportunity » to threaten Europe. He told The Guardian that with Britain being Russia’s « chosen enemy », to avoid an attack similar to the 2018 Salisbury Novichok poisoning, he said the UK should go on the offensive against the Russian security services. He said: « People in the Kremlin aren’t stupid, they’re quite creative. They’ll be thinking of new ways of doing something. What is clear is that there is going to be some kind of pressure, and it will take a similar form [to Salisbury].
« If you cast your mind back to the 1950s and 60s, when there was also quite a wave of this sort of brutal interactions, it sort of dissipated quite quickly, which was done by just giving the mirror response.
« People who work for the intelligence services are just like you and I, they don’t want to die. They started fleeing, leaving the intelligence services.
« This is when it was probably decided that they should discount using the worst, the most brutal methods. I’m not sure whether British society today is ready for this kind of counter-answer, counterstrike. »
Khodorkovsky, 62, had once been Russia’s wealthiest individual, with an estimated fortune of $15bn (£11bn) around the collapse of the Soviet Union, largely through his Siberian oil company Yukos. In 2003, after openly opposing Vladimir Putin and calling for democratic reforms, he was arrested.
He was later convicted of fraud and imprisoned for a decade, in a case widely viewed as politically driven. Following his detention, Yukos was broken up and its assets taken over by the Russian state.
He added it was too late for the West to avoid a new cold war with Russia, and that Putin will attempt to further provoke Britain’s NATO allies.
He said: « I wouldn’t be surprised if in the near future we’ll see some troops amassed on the border with [Nato member] Estonia, for example.
« I do not believe that Putin, in fact, is ready to embark on another military conflict. But it will have an impact. »
To avoid a « hot war », he thinks that governments’ priority should be acting tougher and working on preventing escalation.
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