Russia is already at war with UK, defence adviser warns

Britain is already at war with Russia, one of the authors of the government's strategic defence review has warned, while arguing that the UK can no longer rely on the US as a dependable ally.

- MILLIE COOKE

Dr Fiona Hill, who served as the White House's chief Russia adviser during Donald Trump's first term, said the UK is in "pretty big trouble", warning that the country is stuck between “the rock” of Russia aggression and the “hard place” of an increasingly unreliable US under Mr Trump.

Her comments come after the government’s strategic defence review (SDR) – unveiled last week – found that the armed forces are not ready to fight opponents like Russia or China. “Russia has hardened as an adversary in ways that we probably hadn’t fully anticipated,” Dr Hill told The Guardian, concluding that “Russia is at war with us”.

Arguing that the Kremlin has been “menacing the UK in various different ways” for years, she cited “the poisonings, assassinations, sabotage operations, all kinds of cyber-attacks and influence operations. The sensors that we see that they’re putting down around critical pipelines, efforts to butcher undersea cables”.