Putin is more dangerous than Isis. This is a warning coming from a former KGB double-agent. Viktor Makarov has spent 2 decades on the run after he betrayed his country by supplying crucial information to the British secret service during the Cold War.
Hiding in a remote Haltwhistle in Northumberland, the former agent said he believes he will be safe from the Russian assassins that could want to kill him.
However today, as the UK’s relations with Russian remains under the spotlight after the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, Viktor has opened up about his fears. Speaking from his secret home, the 63-year-old said he believes the threat from Russia has taken a sinister new turn.
He added that he feels his new community will keep him safe from any Salisbury-style attack, but Theresa May needs to take ‘tough action against Putin to keep the UK safe’. Viktor said: ‘Salisbury was horrifying.
‘When I heard I quickly realized these people are very dangerous because they did it quite openly, they didn’t hide their tracks. It is much more sinister. ‘Putin is showing he will stop at nothing. Things are developing very quickly, Russia is getting more and more aggressive. ‘These people are capable of anything, you must not underestimate them. ‘I feel much less vulnerable here, it’s virtually impossible to do what happened in Salisbury here, they didn’t have this community.
‘For all I know they could be going to target me, but the local people would never let it happen. I feel protected by this community, not by the Government.’ Viktor joined the KGB when he was just 20-years-old. He spent 13 years as a double agent and at the height of the Cold War supplied MI5 and MI6 with crucial information about Russian spies’ penetration of secret British codes.
But he was rumbled by his spymasters, arrested and imprisoned. Viktor was released in 1992 and fled Russia via the Baltic to Britain.
