Britain too slow to blame Russia for attacks

Britain is applying a criminal standard of proof before attributing sabotage and arson to Russia when a civil one would do, and the delay is leaving companies supplying Ukraine without the warning they need, a Labour MP has told the UK Defence Journal.

Graeme Downie, the member for Dunfermline and Dollar and author of The Putin Tax report, was asked why Estonia blamed Russia within days for an arson attack on a drone manufacturer last month while British investigations into comparable incidents run for far longer.

“We’ve seen other NATO countries like Estonia blaming Russia and attributing blame within days without the need to publish all of the raw intelligence,” he said. “I honestly don’t know why the UK is so much slower. We must be so much quicker in attributing this stuff and not wait for it to be perfect. Wait till you’re pretty sure.”

His proposed fix is a change in the standard of proof that gets applied to this kind of incident. “Rather than apply the criminal bar of beyond reasonable doubt, you probably apply a civil legal bar of overwhelming evidence, and on the balance of probabilities, that’s how I would prefer to see it,” he said. “And we seem to apply the criminal level, and I just don’t think that’s necessarily appropriate when you’re talking about this kind of stuff, because it delays it.”

He argued that the usual reason for caution does not apply when the suspects are beyond reach. “Let’s be honest, much like we saw in Salisbury, we ain’t ever getting any of these Russian people responsible into court. So I don’t think we need to worry as much about prejudicing inquiries.”

Downie accepted that cyber attribution is harder than attributing a fire. “The UK on cyber attacks, it genuinely is really hard to track that stuff and find out where it originated and who did it and everything else. So it is harder, but I think we’ve got to do much better.”

He described the government’s attribution of last month’s incident at RAF Fairford to Iran as a step in the right direction, with a caveat about why it happened when it did. “I think the UK government move this week with the Iranian activity at RAF Fairford is the beginnings of that,” he said, “although how much of that was because Donald Trump kind of tipped the hand and left them with little choice, but nonetheless that speedier attribution.”

The practical cost of slow attribution falls on businesses. Asked whether British companies supplying Ukraine should be worried after the arson attack on a Leyton warehouse linked to Ukrainian aid, he drew a distinction.

“I think it’s not they should be worried, but they should be aware,” he said. “More publication of that attack, more publicising of that attack and what it was, would have signalled to those companies that are helping supply Ukraine that they need to get protection. I don’t know if they get any protection advice. I suspect they don’t. If they’re supporting Ukraine, I suspect they don’t get that kind of advice or information unless they’re fulfilling a government piece of work, and then they’ll have different rules. But no, I don’t think they do get the protection that they need, or the advice that they need in information.”

On subsea infrastructure, which the report covers alongside Russian submarine activity around British cables, he was unequivocal. “The threat to subsea infrastructure is entirely real. We’ve seen that there was the sabotage rehearsal near Svalbard. That infrastructure threat is very real.”

He said he had raised it repeatedly through the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, and cited how another NATO member has responded. “In Romania they’ve changed their rules of engagement to allow them to protect the Neptun gas facility, and they actually have intercepted a Russian marine drone in that area over the last couple of months. So the threat to subsea infrastructure, both energy and those internet cables, is massive. Even if they’re down for just a few minutes, the cost to the UK economy would be massive. There would be the harm to confidence if those networks don’t come back up very quickly.”

The Leyton warehouse fire in March 2024 destroyed a unit connected to a business sending aid and equipment to Ukraine. Men were later convicted over the attack, which prosecutors told the Old Bailey had been organised on behalf of the Wagner group. Britain attributed the September incident at RAF Fairford to direction by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps earlier this month.

The Putin Tax puts the cost of Russian hostile activity to the British economy at between £2 billion and £2.5 billion and makes four recommendations, among them that the Ministry of Defence begin costing physical attacks.