Putin breaks silence over warnings Russian spies are creating 'mayhem' with rambling rant

Vladimir Putin laughed as he was confronted over claims his spies are creating "mayhem" in Britain.

The Russian President, speaking a week after the Kremlin's operatives were accused of planting a device on a plane bound for the UK, instead ranted about economic conditions in Europe.

MI5 Director General Ken McCallum has warned Moscow and Iran are creating chaos through arson, murder, kidnap and sabotage conspiracies.

And the threat Russia poses on Britain's streets is "getting worse", he admitted.

Mr McCallum said Russia's GRU intelligence agency, which was responsible for the Novichok poisonings in Salisbury in 2018, is behind the "sustained mission", adding that Putin's "henchmen" are ramping up arson and sabotage operations across Europe "in the misguided hope of weakening Western resolve".

But Putin branded the comments "complete nonsense".

Asked by the BBC's Steve Rosenberg if Russia was "wreaking havoc" on the UK, the Russian leader said: "Thank you for reminding me about this part of the question.

"It is complete nonsense. What is happening in the streets of certain European cities is a result of domestic politics and the policies of those states.

"The Eurozone, the European economies are balancing on the brink of recession. Western economies refuse to receive our energy point blank. That causes a certain response. The standards of life are decreasing. It is very simple. How are we implicated in that?

"You know what we say in Russia? This is an attempt to shift the blame and to avoid responsibility for wrong decisions in the economic sphere and domestic politics. Experts can see that clearly. They are closing down everything to do with nuclear energy, coal power generation.

"Did someone calculate whether Africa can cope without these hydrocarbons? No. But they are imposing it on some African countries. Naturally, people are afraid about the exacerbation of the global situation. It has to do with escalation in different conflict zones, in the Middle East, in Ukraine.

"But we're not the ones doing the escalation. It is the other side that is always doing that. But we are prepared for that. But the other countries, that are doing that, are they prepared for it?"

Russian spies are feared to have planted a device on a plane that sparked a fire in a British warehouse.

Counter-terrorism police are investigating a blaze at a DHL warehouse in Birmingham amid fears of a growing number of Kremlin-sponsored sabotage plots.

Nobody was injured in the fire, in July, before it was put out.

But a similar incident in Leipzig, Germany, has sparked fears it is part of a wider Russian campaign to carry out arson and sabotage plots in Europe.

A Metropolitan police counter-terrorism spokesperson said: "We can confirm that officers from counter-terrorism policing are investigating an incident at a commercial premises in Midpoint Way, Minworth.

"On Monday 22 July, a package at the location caught alight. It was dealt with by staff and the local fire brigade at the time and there were no reports of any injuries or significant damage caused.

"Officers are liaising with other European law enforcement partners to identify whether this may or may not be connected to any other similar-type incidents across Europe."

Seven men were charged over a suspected Russian plot when a warehouse in east London belonging to a company linked to Ukraine caught fire in a suspected arson attack in March.

Logistics company DHL said the package that started burning in Germany was originally posted from Lithuania.

It was moments away from being loaded into a plane, which could have triggered a catastrophe, German intelligence chiefs warned.

Britain's top intelligence officer said Russia and Iran are hiring criminals to carry out their "dirty work" and acting with "increasing recklessness".

At least 24 alleged saboteurs have been arrested so far this year after being recruited by Russian spy chiefs.

Mr McCallum said: "In just the last year, the number of state threat investigations we're running has shot up by 48%.

"The more eye-catching shift this year has been Russian state actors turning to proxies for their dirty work, including private intelligence operatives and criminals from both the UK and third countries.

"While altering MI5's detection challenge, Russia's use of proxies further reduces the professionalism of their operations, and - absent diplomatic immunity - increases our disruptive options."

Britain should "expect to see continued acts of aggression here at home" from Russia.