Alexander Bortnikov, 73, the head of Russia’s shadowy FBS intelligence agency, claims that Britain is supporting Ukrainian efforts through MI6 and the SAS
Vladimir Putin’s paranoid Russian counter-intelligence chief Alexander Bortnikov has revealed how he fears real life James Bonds and SAS sabotage squads.
The 73-year-old FSB spy-catcher boss sees the hand of Britain everywhere in the threats he faces. “The Kyiv regime and its security bloc are totally controlled by the British,” he warned spymasters from ex-Soviet states at a session in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
London was also pulling the strings of the EU as it sought to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia, implying the aim was to topple Vladimir Putin.
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“According to reliable data from the FSB, acts of terrorism and sabotage on the territory of the Russian Federation are being carried out under the auspices of the British special services,” he said.
“With MI6, they are planning incursions by Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups into Russia’s border regions, as well as attacks on critical infrastructure facilities.”
This included “use of drones, unmanned boats, and combat divers. The British special services are directly supervising the planning and propaganda support of these operations.
“Elite units of the British Special Air Service (SAS) are participating in combat actions against Russia. Under the leadership of MI6, preparations are underway for attacks on shared critical infrastructure, such as the TurkStream gas pipeline.
“In addition, over 120 Ukrainian call centres have been identified that are recruiting Russian citizens—including teenagers and pensioners—for terrorist activities on Russian territory.”
The failure to reach a peace deal in Ukraine was also Britain’s fault, according to Bortnikov, a long-time Putin loyalist who portrays Sir Keir Starmer’s government as the gravest threat to the Kremlin.
Others blame Putin’s relentless missile and drone strikes, and refusal to meet Volodymyr Zelensky, but Bortnkiov insisted: “It is precisely the British who, through provocations and disinformation, are orchestrating Brussels’ policy aimed at disrupting the Ukrainian settlement.”
He saw 007 spies behind the legendary Ukrainian Spiderweb operation in June which launched simultaneous drone strikes damaging or destroying dozens of Russian strategic bomber aircraft at multiple airfields.
Britain then “provided subsequent propaganda support, spreading fake reports in the media about supposedly enormous damage and the exclusively Ukrainian ‘authorship’ of the sabotage.”
Highlighting Moscow’s siege mentality in the fourth year of Putin’s war, he said: “The intelligence services of the leading NATO countries play the main organising and coordinating role in…..the emergence of most of the current zones of instability — in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe.”
Britain played a key role in whipping up hysteria over an alleged “threat from the East”, he said. Cold War warrior Bortnikov is a career intelligence officer who Putin refuses to allow to retire. He has been head of the FSB – part of the old Soviet KGB – since 2008. He joined the KGB in 1975, the same year as Putin.