By Kyiv Post
Publication Date: 2025-11-17 02:58:00
Britain has replaced the United States as Russia’s “favorite villain.” the guardian he wrote on Sunday, pointing to intensified efforts by the United Kingdom to become what Red Square now considers the “leading global warmonger.”
The tabloid noted that what mainly cooled relations between the Kremlin and 10 Downing Street were accusations of plans for drone attacks on Russian airfields, the blowing up of the Nord Stream oil pipeline and directing “terrorist” attacks on Russian territory.
Ukrainian state media Ukrinform noted that a new allegation was added to the article: Russian authorities claimed that British intelligence had tried, unsuccessfully, to lure Russian pilots to defect to the west.
“The FSB (Russian Federal Security Service) laid out all of this in great detail,” Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, told reporters in Moscow, describing what he called a British-backed plot to lure a Russian pilot flying a plane equipped with Kinzhal missiles to Romania, where, he claimed, he would be shot down by NATO forces.
“‘I don’t know how the British will clean themselves of this, although their ability to play the role of goose out of the shower is well known,’ Lavrov added, using a Russian idiom that portrayed Britain as somehow always coming out spotless, despite its actions,” the paper quoted him as saying.
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The Labour-leaning Guardian highlighted (accurately, by all accounts) that Russia is seeking to improve relations with Donald Trump’s administration and the UK has therefore assumed the role once reserved for the US: that of the Kremlin’s main adversary.
“Russia considers itself on a par with the United States. Now they can’t criticize Trump directly, so who do they blame for their woes: for the losses in Ukraine, for a million casualties? They blame the closest thing, the British. It’s easy to portray us as the root of all Russia’s problems,” said Captain John Foreman, a former UK defense attaché in Moscow.
This year, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) declared: “London today, as on the eve of both world wars, is acting as the main global warmonger.”
The Guardian noted that the rivalry between Russia and the United Kingdom has deep historical roots, dating back to the 19th century, when imperial Russia and Britain competed for influence in Central Asia, but Washington replaced London as the main enemy after the United States emerged as a global superpower after World War II.
Tensions grew exponentially between American John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in the 1960s, and British leadership became an afterthought on the Kremlin’s political radar.
“During the Cold War, the United States was known in KGB parlance as the “main enemy,” with Britain a distant second. Although the rivalry and mutual espionage between the two never went away, in the Kremlin’s mind the threat from Britain was largely a subplot to the main battle between Moscow and Washington.”
Ukrinform noted that the United Kingdom’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE, Neil Holland, stated that the “peace conditions” that Russia proposes to end its war against Ukraine “would in fact reward aggression, legitimize the occupation and give the Kremlin veto power over the future of Ukraine.”
