Russia Increasingly Focuses Hostility on britain, Seeing UK as Isolated adn ‘Pickable’
MOSCOW – Russia appears to have shifted its primary focus of Western antagonism from the United States to Britain, according to diplomatic sources and analysis of Kremlin messaging. While Europe as a whole has become a target as the election of Donald Trump, the UK is singled out for particularly strong condemnation within Russian discourse.
A recent exhibition in Moscow showcasing captured Ukrainian military equipment included a British-made Husky support vehicle, visually underscoring the Kremlin’s animosity. This follows a pattern of increasingly negative rhetoric directed towards London.
“They don’t like Europe, but they really hate the brits, that’s the message that comes through when talking to the Russians,” a senior European diplomat in Moscow told the Guardian, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The shift in focus comes as Russia accuses the UK of conducting a “far-reaching hybrid campaign” on its territory, mirroring similar accusations leveled against other European nations regarding sabotage, arson, and disinformation. Though, Moscow demonstrates a marked unwillingness to engage in diplomatic interaction with London, even through confidential channels, unlike its more open dialog with Berlin and Paris, as reported by the Financial Times.
Pavel Baev, a research professor at the peace Research Institute Oslo, suggests this reluctance stems from the consistent and broad public and political support for military aid to Ukraine within Britain, a contrast to the more divided opinions in other European countries.”Consequently,” Baev said, “Moscow is focusing more on Germany and France as potential channels for derailing European rearmament plans.”
Analysts point to Britain’s post-Brexit position as a key factor in Moscow’s calculations. According to Michael Clarke, Moscow perceives the UK as strategically vulnerable, “isolated itself from its European partners in the Brexit process and will take some time to recover the political ground it lost among the major European powers.”
Clarke also notes Britain’s difficulty in maintaining a strong strategic partnership with the US under both the Trump and Biden administrations, contributing to a sense of isolation not seen as 1914, making the UK, “more isolated than at any time since 1914, and can be picked off.”
