The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) accused the United Kingdom on Monday of collaborating with Ukraine in the organization of provocations in the Baltic Sea, with the alleged objective of involving an American war ship in an incident that scales the conflict between Moscow and kyiv. The statements, however, have not been accompanied by evidence.
According to the statement released by the SVR, Ukraine would be preparing “bloody actions” to sabotage negotiations between Russia and the United States and press Washington to increase their military support to kyiv. Russian intelligence states that these operations would be coordinated with unidentified European countries, in a region that has been nicknamed as “NATO Lake” after the entry of Finland and Sweden in the Alliance.
One of the scenarios raised by the SVR would include an alleged attack with torpedoes falsely attributed to Russia against a US Navy ship, scheduled to occur to a “Safe Distance” without causing damage, but scandalous enough to involve Moscow.
The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Foreign Relations described the accusations as “one more in a series of scandalous Russian statements aimed at diverting the attention of their failures in Ukraine”, in statements collected by Newsweek.
Nichita Gurcov, Analyst of the ACLED organization (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data), warned that these accusations conform to a repeated pattern of statements without foundation of the Kremlin, while the acts of sabotage in Europe They seem to be increasing after a pause in early 2025.
“This accusation fits with other extravagant statements that the SVR has made before. In fact, Russia is the main suspect of many of the recent sabotages in the Baltic Sea,” Gurcov said. ACLED has documented at least seven incidents in May, including fires caused, frustrated sabotage attempts and growing tensions in the Baltic Sea.
The SVR accusation comes at a time when Ukraine intensifies its drones attacks on Russian territory and when less interest is perceived by the United States in promoting a negotiated exit to the conflict.
