A report released on Tuesday depicts the failure of successive British governments to combat Russian interference despite ample evidence of meddling.
A long-awaited report into Russian influence in Britain was finally published on Tuesday, painting a damning picture of the failure of successive British governments to combat a series of threats and interference in its affairs, ranging from disinformation to the purchase of influence.
The British took their eye off the ball and are still playing catch up, the report revealed, concluding that Britain was one of Moscow’s top intelligence targets amid growing diplomatic tensions between the two nations. As Kevan Jones, a member of Parliament who served on the intelligence committee that released the report, said on Tuesday, Russian interference in Britain “is the new normal,” and a major overhaul is needed to counter Moscow’s destabilization efforts in the future.
Here are some of the main takeaways of the report.
According to the report, intelligence agencies ignored threats from Russian interference that they should have seen coming.
No one agency seems to have been responsible for protecting Britain’s democratic process during a series of high profile votes and the report said that it was “surprisingly difficult to establish who has responsibility for” that.
Much of the Russian interference took place in the open — occurring through disinformation — and that meant that it was not the top focus of spy agencies and was partly the responsibility of other government officials.
