LONDON (The Thursday Times) — British counter-terrorism police have arrested a 41-year-old senior soldier of the United States Army near Gloucester, in the west of England, on suspicion of spying for Russia.
The man, who has not been named, was detained on Tuesday under the National Security Act 2023. Police said he is suspected of obtaining or disclosing protected information, an offence under Section 1 of the Act, and of assisting a foreign intelligence service, under Section 3. “The country to which the allegations relate is Russia,” Counter Terrorism Policing said.
He is being held at a London police station, and the law allows officers to detain him for up to 14 days without charge. Officers are also searching two addresses in Gloucestershire.
Police confirmed that the soldier had been serving at Imjin Barracks in Innsworth, on the edge of Gloucester. The base is the headquarters of Nato’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, a British-led corps command that draws staff from across the alliance.
A joint operation with the FBI
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans, the senior national coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, called it a “significant arrest” that came from “close collaboration between UK and US authorities”. “The allegations are serious and our investigation is very much ongoing,” she said. Police said the case is not linked to any other counter-terrorism investigation.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the allegations were “of the utmost concern to the United States and our allies”. “This FBI has no tolerance for anyone who breaks their oath to the United States and whose actions endanger our national security and that of our partners,” he said. He thanked British counter-terrorism police, MI5, UK Defence Counter Intelligence, and US Army Counterintelligence Command.
Patel said the bureau had made 167 counterintelligence and espionage arrests over the past 21 months, a 53 per cent rise on the period before.
Brigadier General Sean Stinchon, who leads US Army Counterintelligence Command, said the “alleged conduct of a senior soldier, entrusted with sensitive information, is a sobering reminder that insider threats are real and persistent”.
Kremlin denies any link
Moscow rejected the allegations on Wednesday. “This arrest does not concern us in any way,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “We don’t know what it’s connected to. We have nothing to do with this.”
A sensitive corner of England
Gloucestershire is home to some of Britain’s most sensitive security sites. GCHQ, the country’s signals intelligence agency, has its headquarters in neighbouring Cheltenham, and RAF Fairford, used by both British and American aircraft, lies to the south-east. This week, US prosecutors charged three men over an Iran-backed plot that included an incident at RAF Fairford.
The arrest is the latest in a run of Russia-linked espionage cases in Britain. In October, police arrested three men on suspicion of assisting Russian intelligence, and in September two men and a woman were held over alleged spying for Moscow. Relations between London and Moscow have sunk to their lowest point since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Britain among Kyiv’s strongest backers.
