By Michael Holden
LONDON, Sept 10 (Reuters) – A British man appeared in a London court on Thursday accused of providing information about factories which manufacture drones and offering to sabotage them on behalf of Russian intelligence.
Joshua Cammidge, 31, has been charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service and preparing an act of sabotage after contact with the GRU Volunteer Corps, which prosecutors said was controlled by Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.
Appearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, prosecutor Warren Stanier said Cammidge was accused of providing details of four drone factories near his home in Swindon, west England, and volunteering to commit an act of sabotage.
Prosecutors say he also conducted research about a Wi-Fi jamming device and undertook reconnaissance.
Cammidge did not enter a plea, but Stanier said that in a police interview he had strenuously denied the charges and said he had had no intention of carrying out any sabotage.
Russia’s embassy in London has not commented on the case.
Stanier told the court that Cammidge, who was arrested in Swindon last week by counterterrorism officers, had been communicating between August 28 and September 3 with a British national who had gone to Russia to fight against Ukraine.
“The essence of those conversations was the location of factories in the UK which manufacture drones and the sabotage of those factories,” Stanier said.
Stanier said other conversations Cammidge had had with an ex-partner and a trusted work colleague showed he was being requested to do so by the Russian intelligence services.
Cammidge was remanded in custody and will appear at London’s Old Bailey court on September 25.
UK’S DETERIORATING RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA
Relations between Britain and Russia have deteriorated sharply since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with British authorities increasingly warning about possible Russian espionage, sabotage and other hostile state activity.
Russia warned last month it could strike British military targets in response to Ukrainian attacks that use British-supplied long-range missiles.
“Russia is constantly probing us and testing us,” British defence minister Wes Streeting told lawmakers on Thursday.
Two years ago, the UK’s domestic spy chief said the GRU was seeking to cause “mayhem” across Europe, and there have been warnings from other European countries in recent weeks that Russia was stepping up a ‘hybrid’ war against allies of Ukraine.
Germany has blamed Russia for an attempted drone attack on a Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle airport last month, though Moscow’s embassy in Berlin said the Leipzig incident was just another example of unsubstantiated accusations.
“I know people will be concerned about recent incidents across Europe, intended to sow fear, create disruption and undermine support for Ukraine. They will not succeed,” British security minister Dan Jarvis said on Wednesday.
In a separate case, Russia’s FSB internal security agency said on Thursday that it had detained a former guard at the British Embassy in Moscow who it said had collected personal data on British diplomats on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence.
(Additional reporting by Sam TobinEditing by Gareth Jones)
