Russia has become a danger to Britain and the country must
be prepared to take steps to defend itself and its allies, the former head of
MI6 says.
Sir John Sawers, who recently retired after five years as
chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, told
Sir John said dealing with such threats would require more
defense spending.
But he called on issues with Russia to be addressed by
"increased dialogue".
He said he was disappointed how, after the end of the Cold
War, Russia's and Europe's paths had failed to converge.
Russia's threat was "not necessarily directly to the UK
but to countries around its periphery".
"[Russia] keep on reminding us that they have nuclear
weapons," he said.
"The one level in which Russia and America are equals
is at the nuclear level.
"Now we don't want to have a repeat of the Cuban
missile crisis in 1962 where we got to the brink of nuclear war.
"We need to be able to address this through increased
dialogue."
'Multi-polar world'
His comments come after a year of fighting in eastern Ukraine
between government forces and pro-Russian separatists.
"We shouldn't kid ourselves that Russia is on a path to
democracy because it isn't," Sir John said.
"One of the aspects of the modern world is that we live
in a much more dangerous world these days.
"The stability that we had during the Cold War, or the
predominance of the West that we had in the decade or two after the Cold War -
that is now changing.
"It's a much sort of flatter world, a much more
multi-polar world and there are real dangers associated with that."
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