We’ll be bringing you the very latest updates, pictures and video on this breaking news story
- Russia’s Defence Ministry has this afternoon claimed it intercepted a United States spy plane above the Baltic Sea.
The plane moved away from the Russian border when a Russian jet approached, it is claimed.
Reports are coming in from the Interfax news agency. Tensions have fluctuated between Russia and the US and its allies in recent months
At the beginning of August we reported how Russian actors are suspected of hacking former Cabinet Minister Liam Fox’s email account to steal top-secret documents on the UK-US trade talks.
The classified papers were leaked on social media site Reddit during last year’s election campaign, and highlighted by the-then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as proof the Government was discussing access to the NHS in US trade talks.
It has now been claimed that the documents were stolen from Dr Fox’s email account, which was reportedly accessed multiple times between July and October.
It is unclear whether this occurred when Dr Fox was International Trade Secretary – as he was sacked by Boris Johnson on July 24 during a cabinet reshuffle.
Dominic Raab accused Russian actors of trying to influence the result of the election by “amplifying” the documents online.
Russian hackers were suspected of accessing Dr Fox’s account on a number of occasions between July 12 and October 21, using a “spear phishing” message that tricks people into handing over their log-in details.
Business Minister Nadhim Zahawi said Russia needed to change its “destabilising and irresponsible” behaviour if it wanted to improve its relations with the UK.
He told TimesRadio: “Until Russia begins to change its behaviour and stops its destabilising and irresponsible activity, then we can’t look at going back to any form of responsible international partnership.
“Because currently, as this breaking story suggests, and I haven’t seen the details of it, they do threaten the UK and its allies.”
Meanwhile, Britain is reportedly set to reject a Russian-made vaccine as the country boasted its that it will it will start a mass vaccination program of its citizens against coronavirus in October in a “Sputnik moment”, as it is set to be the first country in the world to develop one.
The speed at which Russia is moving to roll it out has prompted some Western media to question whether Moscow is putting national prestige before science and safety.
Britain takes a similar view to the US in being sceptical of the Russian vaccine and is unlikely to be ordering it in for use here.
Meanwhile, it was revealed last week how Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen claims he witnessed “golden showers, tax fraud and a secret back channel to Putin” while with the President.
The bombshell allegations are made by Cohen in upcoming book Disloyal, in which he calls his old boss “a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man”.
In the forward for his memoir, Cohen, 53, said: “Trump had colluded with the Russians but not in the sophisticated ways imagined by his detractors” and “cheated in the election, with Russian connivance, as you will discover in these pages because doing anything to ‘win’ has always been his business model and way of life.
“When Trump wanted to reach Russian President Vladimir Putin, via a secret back channel, I was tasked with making the connection.”
