MOSCOW, November 1. /TASS/. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has refuted remarks by MI5 Director General Andrew Parker that Russia is aggressively advancing its foreign policy.
"This is completely untrue, we cannot agree with it at all," Peskov told journalists on Tuesday.
More groundless accusations
Commenting on Parker’s interview with the UK daily, The Guardian, where he said that Russia is employing various tools, including cyberattacks, to push its aggressive foreign policy, Peskov rebutted, "We have already commented numerous times on the alleged cyberattacks."
"Until real proof is furnished, we will consider any statements, by either the MI5 chief, or the United States Vice President, or any other official, as evidence-free and unsupported, so, we cannot have any regard for these unsubstantiated statements," Peskov stressed.
Legitimate protection of interests
The Kremlin spokesman said he can agree with Parker "on only one point: Russia is really ‘using its whole range’ of opportunities but, contrary to what he [Parker] said, all possibilities envisaged by international law to promote and defend its interests abroad."
"Russia has always been doing this, being guided by the principles of mutually beneficial relations and seeking to build good-neighborly and mutually advantageous ties with all of its partners," the spokesman explained.
Parker’s interview
In his interview with the Guardian that was published on its website on Monday, the MI5 chief said that Russia poses a growing threat to Great Britain as it is using all possible tools it has to "push its foreign policy abroad in increasingly aggressive ways - involving propaganda, espionage, subversion and cyber-attacks."
"It (Russia) is using its whole range of state organs and powers to push its foreign policy abroad in increasingly aggressive ways - involving propaganda, espionage, subversion and cyber-attacks," the daily quoted Parker as saying."
"Russia is at work across Europe and in the UK today," he said. "It is MI5’s job to get in the way of that."
"Russia increasingly seems to define itself by opposition to the west and seems to act accordingly," the chief of the British intelligence service said. "You can see that on the ground with Russia’s activities in Ukraine and Syria."
"But there is high-volume activity out of sight with the cyber-threat," Parker said. "Russia has been a covert threat for decades."
The Guardian reported that Parker became the first incumbent MI5 director general to give a newspaper interview in the 107-year old history of the British intelligence service.