Sir Richard Moore, chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS-MI6), was the featured speaker in Prague, yesterday, at an event sponsored by Politico at the British embassy, which was prefaced by an interview with Politico. There was nothing subtle about Moore’s message: Just as Soviet tanks invaded Czechoslovakia and crushed the 1968 “Prague Spring,” he said, today once again Russians have invaded another European country, Ukraine, “ravaging a kindred country,” committing unspeakable atrocities, “expelling innocent families from their homes, kidnapping thousands of children,” leaving devastation in their wake. Just as 1968 Prague.
Politico plays this up very prominently on its website, with Moore’s speech, the interview, and shorter clips from his speech on key points he emphasized. Moore’s deployment to Prague should be seen in the context of London’s efforts to escalate the drive to nuclear war.
Militarily, Moore paints a fantasy-ridden picture of the battlefield. He claims that Russia is “about to run out of steam” in its Special Military Operation (SMO), claiming that there have been “appalling casualties” on the Russian side and that the military will find it increasingly difficult to supply manpower and materiel over the next few weeks. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, are now “on the offensive,” he reports, “although it’s a hard slog,” but they are “demonstrating their astonishing ability to innovate and mobilize new technology.” There are few signs “that Russian forces are gaining momentum,” he adds.
The MI6 chief insists that Putin and his government are starting to crumble, with “cracks” beginning to appear in his power structure, following Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s attempted mutiny. “I think he probably feels under some pressure. Prigozhin was his creature, utterly created by Putin and yet he turned on him. He really didn’t fight back against Prigozhin. He cut a deal to save his skin using the good offices of the leader of Belarus.” Moore described Pregozhin’s attempted mutiny as “extraordinary” but ultimately not a surprise.
