A week after the UK expelled the Russian defence attaché, Colonel Maxim Yelovik, for being ‘an undeclared intelligence officer’, Russia predictably responded on Thursday by expelling my successor, Captain Adrian Coghill, from Moscow. He has a week to leave. Russia has also promised to retaliate to visa restrictions placed on Russian diplomats by Britain, and the to the removal of diplomatic status from buildings around London allegedly used for nefarious activities.
Using the pretext that Yelovik was an ‘undeclared intelligence officer’ sets an impossibly high bar for of future Russian military attachés in London.
Over recent decades, naval, army and air attachés have been routinely expelled by both Britain and Russia as diplomatic relations have fluctuated – most recently following the Salisbury poisonings in 2018. But this latest round of tit-for-tat expulsions is a new low. It formally ends, for now, the permanent UK military presence in Moscow that has endured some very tough times since 1941. Although senior UK ministers claimed expulsion of the Russian attaché would deter Russia’s ‘reckless and dangerous activities’ in Europe, this is a mistake which will hamper understanding of the Russian military, denude the hard-pressed embassy in Moscow, and will do little to prevent ongoing Russian political warfare.
Britain and Russia have been intertwined for centuries, but ‘periods of allegiance have been for pragmatic reasons, rather than any deep affinity’, as Lord David Owen wrote in 2021. There has been a sense here that bloody, autocratic, continental, Orthodox Russia is the anthesis of peaceful, democratic, maritime, Protestant Britain. Mutual suspicion, distaste for Russia, and a tendency to regard it, as a 16th century English diplomat wrote, as ‘a vast shadowy realm cursed by a hideous climate and populated by uncouth men and fantastic beasts’ has hindered our understanding of this vast, unruly country.
Because of this fraught relationship, the need for deeper understanding of the largest army in Europe, and fear of the Russian menace, Britain first decided to attach a permanent cadre of British officers to the British embassy in St Petersburg in the late 19th century. Their task then (as now) was to advise the ambassador on political-military affairs, act as the senior military conduit between the two capitals, and analyse Russian military developments. Despite extraordinary advances in access to information, there remains no substitute for being ‘in country’ to facilitate direct relations, find out what is going on, and if necessary to provide challenge to thinking back in London.
The decision to break relations should not have been taken lightly. The final straw seems to have been allegations of a Russian hand behind suspected espionage and sabotage in the UK. But Russia and its military aren’t going away. It possesses the largest nuclear power in the world and continues to modernise its arsenal. Russia is actively striving to expand the size of its military and improve its quality. President Putin replaced his defence minister with an economist this week to control soaring military expenditure and squeeze more bang for his buck from the inefficient and corrupt Ministry of Defence. He remains deeply committed to his genocidal war to subjugate Ukraine. His army have launched a series of new attacks along the front line. Removing the last vestige of British military expertise from Moscow at this juncture is unwise.
Throughout the Cold War, maintenance of strategic military ties between two permanent members of the UN Security Council and largest military powers in Europe was assessed by successive British governments as having greater benefit than severing them in response to repeated Russian provocations. The same logic drove us to retain attachés in Germany right up until the outbreak of both the first and second world wars, and in the Soviet Union until its collapse.
This time, less wise heads have prevailed. Being tough on Russia is of course never politically unpopular, especially in the run-up to an election. Labour predictably rowed in behind the government. The usual hawkish voices lauded the decision to expel Yelovik. However, as Mark Galeotti put it in The Spectator when previously arguing against expulsion of the Russian ambassador, reducing ‘already-limited on-the-ground expertise and ability to gather information and connect to ordinary Russians does not seem likely to help anyone but Putin’.
The Home Office also lobbied hard for the Russian attaché’s expulsion since 2018 – efforts fought off by the former defence secretary Ben Wallace. They’ve finally succeeded with the acquiescence of the less pugnacious Grant Shapps. But even if Russia’s intelligence capability in the UK is tactically reduced, Putin’s strategic intent to divide, dishearten and weaken the West endures. This expulsion won’t change that.
In 2022, this government’s own Integrated Review recognised that ‘well-established channels for dialogue and de-escalation with Russia are currently limited and under significant strain’ but said that ‘strategic dialogue was required to prevent miscalculation and misunderstanding’. When announcing the expulsion of the Russian attaché, the Home Secretary assured MPs that the UK would ‘protect our ability to have lines of communication with Russia, even during these most challenging of times, routes for de-escalation, of error avoidance and the avoidance of miscalculations’. This task will now fall on our ambassador but, without a de facto formal link or a military advisor in the country, it remains to be seen if Russia is open to his entreaties. This route is also a poor substitute for direct links between the two defence ministers and chiefs of general staff.
It is unclear how defence relations can now be re-established. All Russian defence attachés without exception come from Russian military intelligence, known colloquially as the GRU. Using the ridiculous public pretext that Yelovik was an ‘undeclared intelligence officer’ now sets an impossibly high bar for any acceptance of future Russian military attachés in London.
The last time the UK completely severed its military relations with Russia was following the murder of the sole remaining British attaché, Captain Francis Cromie, in St Petersburg in 1918. Military relations were not re-established until 1941. At this exceptionally volatile and unstable time in European history, an enduring Russian threat, and exceptionally strained bilateral relations, I hope it doesn’t take a similarly long period for the British government to see sense.
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