How Putin will now target the UK, according to experts and insiders

Moscow could expel British diplomats and journalists or even attempt to seize UK planes and ships in retaliation for supplying drones for Ukrainian strikes on Russian targets, experts believe. The Kremlin has threatened consequences for Britain’s deepening involvement in the war after it emerged that drones built by two UK companies were used in attacks on military and industrial targets deep inside Russia. On Monday, the Russian embassy in the UK accused Britain of escalating the Ukraine conflict and warned that the deeper the country’s involvement became, “the higher the price it will pay”. Shorts Defence experts said the likely response by Vladimir Putin’s regime, could come as soon as within the next 48 hours. They warned it could involve an even greater escalation in the “grey zone” or “hybrid war” activity that Moscow has waged against Britain for the past few years, such as cyber attacks and shadowing of the UK’s undersea communications tables and ships in the Channel. But a retaliation could also be more overt – such as detaining British diplomats or journalists based in Russia or firing a weapon near a UK-owned oil rig. Such activity would be below the threshold to trigger Article 5 of the Nato treaty (which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all and merits a comparative response), but would be enough to send a message to Britain over its involvement in the Ukraine war, experts said. The strikes by Ukraine included attacks on refineries and warehouses of Russian online retailer Wildberries. Russia said the UK was “acting as an accomplice and co-perpetrator” of “bloody crimes … committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis” and “terrorist attacks”. In response to the Russian rhetoric, Prime Minister Andy Burnham vowed on Tuesday that the UK will keep supporting Ukraine “100 per cent”. ‘The war is escalating’ Tobias Ellwood, a military analyst and former defence minister, predicted that Russia would retaliate with a form of grey zone activity within the next 48 hours. He told The i Paper: “The war is escalating. Ukraine’s ability to strike deep into Russia challenges Putin’s claim the war is limited and under control. It’s also harming his oil revenues. “I predict Russia will launch some major cyber attacks on the UK. In Ukraine, he could easily turn to WMD [weapons of mass destruction], probably chemical though we should not rule out tactical nuclear. “It all places Britain under Russian crosshairs and we will soon find out how woefully unprepared we are.” However, Ellwood said reports that Russia could deploy Poseidon, a nuclear-armed torpedo, against the UK were not credible. Vladimir Solovyov, a presenter on Russian state TV, had on Monday urged Putin to “give the British three days to learn to breathe underwater, then hit them with Poseidon”. Retaliation could come within 48 hours But Ellwood said: “An intentional nuclear attack on the UK would risk a Nato response and potentially a catastrophic nuclear exchange. “Nothing in today’s reporting indicates Russia is preparing an imminent Poseidon strike. That said – the Russian warning therefore shouldn’t simply be dismissed. Relations are genuinely dangerous and escalation is possible. “But headlines suggesting ‘Russia is about to Poseidon/nuke Britain go substantially beyond the evidence I see. This is about spooking the British people – attempting to pressure Britain over its support for Ukraine, with hybrid retaliation very likely in the next 48 hours.” Russia’s sliding scale list of options Tim Willasey-Wilsey, senior associate fellow at Rusi International and a former British diplomat, said he believed a Russian response could be more than just hybrid warfare. He said: “The whole point about hybrid is it’s sort of implausibly deniable. So, we all know they’re doing it, whether it’s undersea cables or it’s cyber attacks or arson, we all know that’s happening, but they’re pretending it’s not them. “In this particular case, they want to claim that it is them. It seems to me that this is something they want to badge as a response to us supplying drones to the Ukrainians.” Experts say Vladimir Putin will be weighing up how to respond after it was confirmed British-made drones had been used to strike targets inside Russia (Photo: Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/AP) Willasey-Wilsey said it was likely that, since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia had been assembling a sliding scale list of potential retaliatory actions they might take against the UK or another Nato ally for assisting Kyiv. Since the war began, Britain has already supplied Nlaw anti-tank missiles and Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine but Russia chose not to overtly retaliate against the UK – although Moscow has significantly increased its grey zone activity since 2022. But Willasey-Wilsey added: “What’s changed now is Russia is in real trouble. The Ukrainian attacks on the oil infrastructure since April have been very considerable. “The attacks on Wildberries have also been very successful, and the war for the first time is coming home to the Russian people. Hitherto they’ve been completely protected from it, but it’s coming home now to the population of Moscow and St Petersburg, that there’s a war going on, and this potentially threatens Putin’s position. “ I think this threat is partly driven by the difficult situation Russia finds itself in.” Ships or aircraft could be seized The list of options Russia might have to take against the UK, Willasey-Wilsey said, could range from, at the lower level, expelling BBC and other British journalists based in the country, expelling or detaining junior diplomats to targeting Britain’s vulnerabilities on sea and land. He added: “To give you an example, in May 2026 there was a RAF surveillance aircraft that flew very, very close… to Russian airspace, and an option for them would be to force one of those to land in Russian territory and detain it. “Or there might be a British commercial ship… maybe a British merchant ship in the Baltic, reasonably close to Russian waters, which they take into St Petersburg, and they claim it would infringe Russian territory. “There could conceivably be something very drastic, which might involve firing a weapon at an oil rig or a vessel. “There’ll be people [around Putin] saying, ‘Go hard’ and other people saying, ‘Well, hang on a moment, we’re going to do something, wouldn’t it be far safer to do something against the Baltic state or Poland rather than Britain’. So there’ll be people arguing both sides.” Willasey-Wilsey said it was likely that Britain would have its own sliding scale menu of options of “what would we do if the Russians did something nasty to us, which at the low end of the scale again would be the expulsion of junior diplomats, and the top end of the scale would be something more forceful”. The Russians can ‘choose their moment’ He added: “What we don’t want to find ourselves in is a situation where something happens, and all we can do is protest in the strongest possible manner, which makes us look foolish. It just makes us look really weak. “Say, for example, a civilian aircraft was forced to land at a Russian airport, and 30 of the passengers on board were British. There would be calls saying … ‘Is what we’re doing for Ukraine really worth it?’ And of course, the Russians would love that. You don’t want to give them anything that introduces uncertainty, or the impression of weakness. “I don’t think for a moment that the Russians would do something which infringes Article 5. But just remember that yesterday [Monday] Donald Trump criticised – more than criticised – he threatened Oman and he threatened South Korea, two allies. “If you’re Russia, you’re thinking to yourself, actually, quite honestly, does Article 5 still apply? You can imagine if you’re Russia, you’d quite like to test Article 5 to see whether it really still pertains. Thank goodness they haven’t done that yet. “It’s very easy for Andy Burnham, who’s completely new to this whole area, completely new to foreign policy, to say we stand 100 per cent by Ukraine. I only really hope that the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence have done the underpinning thinking behind that, so that he’s not caught looking foolish if something happens tomorrow, or maybe not tomorrow, maybe next week or next month. The Russians can choose their moment.”