Yesterday evening on BBC Radio 4’s Political Thinking Nick Robinson interviewed former MI6 operative Christopher Steel, who worked at the Russian desk from 1987 until 2009.
It was a fascinating interview, a powerful piece of radio.
Steele spoke openly and clearly how Russia invests large sums of money in attempting to influence Westerners. He said they spend as much money doing that as they are doing on the battlefield in Ukraine. They use London as a major laundering city for corrupt money and have been doing so for 20 years.
He asked: “Should we punch Putin in the face or slap him in the stomach?” He believes we do the former and we are slow about doing that.
Steele said that Britain was far too slow to react to the death of Alexander Litvinenko as it was to Russia’s meddling in Ukraine.
He is concerned that the West does not know how to react to authoritarian nationalism. He is confident that the West is far more technologically advanced than both China and Russia but we are living in a new era where the West is no longer dominant.
A fascinating interview with a fascinating man.
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