Gavin Williamson: Why Vladimir Putin’s Russia is the biggest threat to our security in UK
Vladimir Putin's Russia is 'bearing down' on Britain and has become a major threat to our national security, the Defence Secretary has warned.
Gavin Williamson said the UK had 'spent decades' failing to address the problem of Russia's growing military power and burgeoning global presence as a de-stabilising influence on the west.
He said it was wrong to believe that ISIS was the only enemy that Britain had to worry about, and warned against the country getting 'caught napping' by increasing levels of Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic.
Speaking exclusively to the Express & Star, the South Staffordshire MP said: "We have spent decades thinking there is not really a threat from Russia. Now we are seeing them bearing down on us.
"Make no mistake, they can harm us as a country. We have seen how they can interfere with the process of democracy.
"People have thought we don’t need to worry about them for too long."
Royal Navy chief Admiral Sir Philip Jones recently warned that the degree of superiority of western navies was diminishing, describing rising Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic as 'the new norm'.
Mr Williamson said: "They [Russia] have increased submarine activity ten-fold [in the North Atlantic]. We simply can’t sit back and think that this is not a problem for us.
"Their activities there are designed to put pressure on us, and I certainly don’t like the idea of surrendering the North Atlantic to Russia.
"We must be careful that we don’t get caught napping.
"It is vitally important we play a leading role in the Baltic region.
"For too long we have thought that counter terrorism was the only thing we had to worry about."
