LONDON - Britain accused the Kremlin on Saturday of trying to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine, and said Russian intelligence officers had been in contact with a number of former Ukrainian politicians as part of plans for an invasion.
The British foreign ministry didn't give any evidence to back up its accusations, which came at a time of high tensions between Russia and the West over Russia's mass troops near its border with Ukraine. Moscow has insisted it has no plans to invade.
The British ministry said that the Russian government is considering former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevhen Murayev as a potential candidate to lead a pro-Russian leadership.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said on Twitter that we will not tolerate Kremlin plot to install pro-Russian leadership in Ukraine. The Kremlin knows that a military incursion would be a huge strategic mistake that the UK and our partners would impose on Russia. The British statement was released in the early hours of Sunday, Moscow and Kyiv time, and there was no immediate statement from the Kremlin or Murayev.
The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the comments as disinformation accusing Britain and NATO of escalating tensions over Ukraine.
The Foreign Office should cease these provocative activities, stop spreading nonsense, and focus its efforts on studying the history of the Mongol-Tatar yoke, the ministry said on its verified Facebook account.
British claims came a day after top U.S. and Russian diplomats failed to make a major breakthrough in talks to resolve the crisis over Ukraine, although they agreed to keep talking. Russia has made security demands on the United States, including a halt to NATO's eastward expansion and a pledge that Ukraine will never be allowed to join the Western military alliance.
This kind of plotting is deeply disturbing, according to Emily Horne, a U.S. National Security Council spokesman. The Ukrainian people have the right to decide their own future, and we stand with our democratically-elected partners in Ukraine. Murayev, 45, is a pro-Russian politician who opposes the integration of Ukraine with the West. According to a poll conducted by the Razumkov s Centre in December 2021, he was ranked seventh among candidates for the 2024 presidential election with 6.3 percent support.
You made my evening a success. Murayev told Britain's Observer newspaper that the British Foreign Office seems confused. It isn't very logical. Money from my father's firm has been confiscated as well. Britain, which provided 2,000 missiles and a team of military trainers to Ukraine this week, also said that Russian intelligence services were working with numerous former Ukrainian politicians, including senior figures with links to former President Viktor Yanukovich.
After three months of protests against his rule, Yanukovich fled to Russia in 2014 and was sentenced in absentia to 13 years in jail in 2019 on treason charges.
Some of these have contact with Russian intelligence officers who are currently involved in planning for an attack on Ukraine, the British foreign office statement said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Downing Street office said that the British leader was planning to ramp up pressure on Russia this week by calling for European counterparts to come together with the United States to fight Russian aggression.
Earlier in the day, RIA reported that British foreign minister Truss would visit Moscow in February to meet Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu and British counterpart Ben Wallace, while Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and his British counterpart Sergei Lavrov agreed to hold talks.