Joe Harker
A government report is warning that Brits are at risk of 'grey zone' attacks after people working for a Russian mercenary group blew up a London warehouse that had supplies intended for Ukraine.
Three men were found guilty of an arson attack on an industrial unit in Leyton which they had carried out on the orders of Russian private army the Wagner group.
Nii Mensah and Jakeem Rose, both 23, set fire to the East London warehouse while 20-year-old Ugnius Asmena waited for them in a nearby car and were found guilty of aggravated arson with intent to endanger life.
Meanwhile, fellow plotters Dylan Earl, 20, and Jake Reeves, 23, had already been convicted of aggravated arson after admitting to charges.
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This attack is a 'grey zone' incident which is an attack that falls short of military conflict and includes such things as propaganda, economic pressure, espionage, computer hacking, weaponizing migration, sabotage and assassination.
A new report from the Commons Defence Committee says the UK needs to allocate 'sufficient resources' to tackle grey zone attacks where the UK and its public will be attacked by other countries in ways that fall short of war.
Slough MP Tan Dhesi, Chair of the Defence Committee said: "Our adversaries have purposefully blurred the line between peace and war. Grey zone threats pose a particularly insidious challenge – they unsettle the fabric of our day-to-day lives and undermine our ability to respond."
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"The MOD plays an important part in defending the nation from grey zone attacks, but it is only a part.
"These attacks do not discriminate; they target the whole of our society and so demand a whole of society response, in which we all must play our part.
"We must now assume that any vulnerability will be exploited against us. The industries and technologies we rely on most are clear targets for hostile states. This is why we are calling for a shoring up of our digital and cyber skills and protections."
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The committee has said that 'current grey zone attacks indicate that Russia already believes it is in an existential struggle with the West', and noted that some countries were already taking measures against certain methods as primary school children in Finland were being taught to detect disinformation.
If the future of hostility is to damage, disrupt, disinform and destabilise then countries need to work out how to fight against such attempts that armed forces wouldn't be responsible for handling as there wasn't an explicit war on.
Russia has assassinated people in the UK before, including Alexander Litvinenko, and the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in 2018 resulted in the death of British woman Dawn Sturgess after the assassins left behind the deadly nerve agent Novichok.
Another government report warned that Russia was spreading disinformation in the UK and their malign influence was 'the new normal', while MI6 and the CIA have said Russia is conducting a 'reckless campaign of sabotage across Europe'.