US Army member arrested in UK over suspected Russia espionage

Simon, there's a lot of worry across Europe that this is effectively giving in to Putin and moving the front line, as it were, of NATO further west. What's coming out of it so far, these talks? Well, I mean, these are very early stage talks, these three-way talks that are taking place in Abu Dhabi, Andrew, with the US, Ukraine and Russia, lower level officials, of course, than the presidents of those three countries. The Europeans are present, but they're not involved in the direct three-way conversations that are taking place. They're on the fringes talking to particularly the Ukrainians and, of course, the Americans about the direction of travel for these talks. But as those talks are taking place, We are now learning about an incident in the unlikely location of Gloucester that may have an impact on these conversations because it's been announced within the last few minutes that a member of the U.S. Army has been arrested in Gloucester as part of a counterterrorism policing investigation. The 41-year-old man was arrested earlier today on suspicion of offenses under Section 1 and Section 3 of the National Security. Act searches, according to counterterrorism police, are being taking place at two locations in Gloucestershire and the country to which the allegations relate is Russia. On this side of the Atlantic, FBI Director Kash Patel has issued a statement saying this important arrest involves allegations of espionage, which is of the utmost concern to the United United States and our allies, while this investigation is. is continuing. He says, I want to send a clear message. The 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. And tellingly, Kash Patel goes on to say this matter shows that partnerships are essential to protect our countries, plural. And I want to express my Thanks to UK counter-terrorism policing, MI5... U.K. defense counterintelligence and the U.S. Army counterintelligence command for their outstanding work. So a 41-year-old man, member of the U.S. Army, arrested in Gloucester, searches underway in two separate locations in Gloucestershire in relation to allegations that relate to possible espionage for Russia and all of that coming at this pivotal moment as those talks take place in Dubai. between the US, Ukraine and Russia. There's RAF Fairford, of course, that we've heard a lot about recently in Gloucestershire, and also GCHQ, which is an extremely sensitive site in Gloucestershire as well. Now, the two offences that he's been arrested under, one involves assisting a foreign intelligence service, and that's been identified as Russia, and the other one is obtaining or copying... Topping a... ...protected information, and that seems to be the key offence here, that he has taken some information that he was privy to as a senior member of the military and has been offering that to Russia. Now, we also know that the Russians have been reaching out to individuals. They've improved the way they do that, and they do it online. And we've also seen a member of the British military who's been charged with a similar sort of offence for offering the Russians information. But it seems that the British counter-espionage operation is in full swing and that they're managing to stop some of these individuals before they're able to get very far. Some people might draw a link to the fact that American planes have been moved out of RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk today. Could there possibly be a link between the two things? They could, although, of course, Mildenhall's in Suffolk, but that seems to be more of a strategic move against potential attacks from Iran. We know that Iran have been doing various operations against the West, whether they're aimed at Jewish and Israeli targets, as we've seen in London in the spring, or whether the The successful attempt to hack into fridges across Europe appears to be Iranian-backed as well, according to the French. So they do seem to be still on manoeuvres, despite the fact that President Trump is wanting to make peace, as he said yesterday.