10 March 2015updated 24 Jul 2021 2:56pm

Philip Hammond: Russia could be the “single greatest threat“ to UK security

The Foreign Secretary warns about the threat Russia poses to Britain's security, seeing relations going from prickly to poor.

By Anoosh Chakelian

(Photo By Violence escalates in Kiev. Photo: Getty)

The Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has warned that Russia could pose the “single greatest threat” to the UK’s national security.

In a speech this morning, he ramped up the rhetoric regarding the Russian President Vladimir Putin, having recently described the UK and Russia rather mildly as having a “prickly relationship”.

Hammond today suggested that the UK government could publicise information about the money stored in secret bank accounts in the West by Putin’s wealthy Russian allies as a way of putting further pressure on the President to stop his aggression in Ukraine.

The Guardian reports that, when asked if there is a case for making such information public, he replied:

There might be. When we talk about having further steps that we can take in increasing the pressure on Russia, one of the headings that we regularly review is strategic communication, how can we send a message to the Russian people, and that Russia is seeking to influence outside Russia, about what’s really going on. And it’s a very intertesting thought. I will certainly make sure that the strat-comms people are thinking precisely about that.