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London: Britain faces an increased risk of a terror attack because MI5 has to divert resources to monitor Russian spies, security sources have warned.
Anger at growing espionage by some 30 agents in Britain is threatening to overshadow the first meeting between Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the G8 summit in Japan today.
MI5 regularly has to tie up significant numbers of its 3,600 staff to deal with Russian spies at a time when it is trying to combat up to 200 suspected terror groups possibly involving 2,000 Islamist extremists in Britain.
The warning comes after it was revealed last week that Russia is now considered the third most serious threat facing the country.
The "league table" of threats to the nation's security is headed by Al Qaida terrorism, with Iranian nuclear proliferation second.
Concerns dismissed
According to Whitehall sources, Britain has raised the problem posed by Russian agents at diplomatic levels, but the concerns were dismissed.
"The Government has spoken to Moscow and asked them to stop but their response is 'everyone spies on everyone [else]'," one senior security source said.
"MI5's resources have been stretched to the limit for the past few years. There have been times when there was nothing left in the locker, when all of our assets were being used on one operation.
"At the same time, we have to contend with the very real threat being posed by the Russians. Russia is a country which is under suspicion of committing murder on British streets and it must be assumed that having done it once they will do it again," the source said.
Meanwhile, it has been learnt that Brown will raise the subject of the murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko during his meeting with Medvedev, according to a letter from Foreign Secretary David Miliband to Litvinenko's widow, Marina.
Litvinenko, 44, died in 2006 after being poisoned at a London hotel. Russia has refused to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, an ex-KGB agent suspected of the killing.
It is not known if Brown will raise his irritation about the levels of industrial and military espionage by the Russians.
Such a move would worsen the already cool relations between the two countries which resulted in a row between Tony Blair and the former Russian president Vladimir Putin at the G8 summit last year.
Reconciliation efforts
However, in an interview in Hokkaido, Japan - the venue for this year's G8 summit - Medvedev showed signs of wanting to end the rift, saying international relations required people to come together.
One security source said: "Russia has a spy culture that predates the communist regime. The FSB [Federal Security Bureau] is just as active as the KGB was during the Cold War. They have a policy of state-sponsored assassination and they pose a very credible threat. They want to steal our secrets. They have an insatiable appetite for anything to do with arms manufacture and energy."
In July last year, Britain expelled four Russian diplomats after a request to extradite the prime suspect in the Litvinenko murder case was refused by the Russians.
Since the suicide bombing attacks on London in July 2005, the security budget covering MI5 (the security service), MI6 (the intelligence service) and GCHQ, the eavesdropping centre, has risen by 65 per cent to more than £2 billion this year.
Security officials say the threat of a terrorist outrage remains as high as it was in 2005 when London's transport system was attacked.
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