UK man charged with assisting Russian military spies in sabotage plot

Joshua Cammidge, a 31-year-old British national, has been charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service after alleged contact with Russian military spies, according to the Crown Prosecution Service. The charges came on Wednesday following his arrest last week by counterterrorism police. Cammidge allegedly received instructions from a suspected representative of the GRU Volunteer Corps, a group controlled by Russia's military intelligence agency, with the intent to commit an act of sabotage. The British national is set to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday. Metropolitan Police said the arrest was made by London Counter Terrorism and Wiltshire Police officers at an address in Swindon, a town in southwest England. The search of the address yielded further evidence, which was then taken to a London police station. Cammidge was further detained under the United Kingdom's National Security Act. The GRU Volunteer Corps was deemed a national security threat by the UK in July for collecting foreign intelligence and conducting hostile covert operations on behalf of Russian military spies. In response, supporters of the group face up to 14 years in prison under a new law intended to give the government more powers to tackle proxy organisations carrying out hostile activity on behalf of foreign states. The UK has blamed the GRU for hostile activities against the country and allies, including the 2018 Salisbury nerve agent attack and wider sabotage and intelligence operations across Europe. Security Minister Dan Jarvis stated, 'Anyone attempting to undermine our security will feel the full force of the law.' Relations between Britain and Russia have deteriorated sharply since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with British authorities increasingly warning about alleged Russian espionage, sabotage and other hostile state activity. Last month, Russia warned it could strike British military targets in response to Ukrainian attacks using British-supplied long-range missiles.