Sputnik: So regarding MI5’s talks about this threat from Russia, do you think that there is any evidence of this?
Alexander Mercouris: Well, he didn't produce any evidence. And I can't imagine that there is any evidence because there is no threat to this country from Russia. This is still Cold War material, leftover from the 1970s and 1980s. I mean, why would Russia be interested in being a threat to this country?
I read the article regarding MI5’s comments and it was slightly deranged; threats from Russia, threats from China, threats from Iran. Why would the Russians be threatening Britain at this particular moment? Now, the Russians obviously, are a powerful country with lots of interests and active foreign policy, but they are not going to be particularly focused on Britain, I would have thought because Britain is not a pressing problem for them.
They have other countries, which are far more important and interesting to them than Britain is. They have issues at the moment in places like Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, the Caucasus, they have a very active policy in the Middle East. They have strong relations with Germany, which is a country that they are very concerned about at the moment because you know, they're getting unfriendly signs from Germany.
And of course, they have the overarching foreign policy interests of their relations with the United States. I can imagine that there would be Russian intelligence operations in those countries, I can't really see what the purpose of major Russian intelligence operations at this time in Britain would be.
But putting all that aside, the way in which intelligence operations, which in the may very well be ongoing ones, from the Russians and other countries, are conflated with threats is really remarkable, if not, after all, as if Britain doesn't carry out intelligence operations in other countries, are those threats by Britain, to those countries.
Sputnik: And do you think this is another example of Russophobia from the British government?
Alexander Mercouris: Yes, I think I think very much so I mean, it's Russophobia that has been obviously there for a long time, which got completely out of control, after the events in 2014, in Ukraine, the Ukrainian conflict. But clearly, it's been an abiding obsession, by the British government, and by the various agencies of the British government.
They tend to see the Russians as behind lots of things, which really are not connected to the Russians at all. So you know, there's been complaints about Brexit being due to the Russians. There are complaints about the Scottish independence movement, being somehow connected to the Russians when embarrassing things happen the Russians are somehow involved in all of that.
But perhaps what’s more interesting in some ways, because russophobia is obviously there, and has been there for a long time, and is in some ways, an old story is that russophobia is now expanding into sinophobia and Iranophobia. And, you know, we seem to be surrounded by threats from all sorts of adversary states.
Sputnik: Can the British really put Russia in the same bracket as Islamic State as they seem to be doing?
Russia is not a terrorist threat to this country, to talk about it as if it was to talk about state actors like Russia and to bracket them with Islamist terrorism, that is russophobia. Russians carry out unquestionably intelligence operations in many countries, as does Britain. That is a valid comparison, British intelligence operations with Russian intelligence. But to lump Russians together with terrorism and specifically Islamic State type terrorism. That is not just wrong. It is incendiary. It is misleading. It is a reflection of russophobia and it is actually propagandistic.
