Russia intelligence ‘hacked UK visa system', investigation claims

Russian IT specialist claims he was strong-armed by the Russian Security Service to provide back door access

Russian intelligence may have infiltrated the computer infrastructure of a company that processes British visa applications in Moscow, a new investigation has claimed.

The Bellingcat investigative website, along with Russian news portal The Insider both reported that they has interviewed the former chief technical officer of a company that processes visa applications in Moscow.

The man, who fled Russia last year and applied for asylum in the US, reportedly told them that he had been coerced to work with an agent who revealed to him that they had access to the British visa centre's CCTV cameras and had a diagram of the unit's computer network.

Publishing their findings from the source known as “Vadim” - who did not wish his identity to be known for safety reasons - they reported that in the spring of 2016 officers from Russian spy agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), asked for his assistance with the visa applications for two people they planned to send to Britain.

The timing points to the first reported trip to Britain of the two men, who travelled under the names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the false names used by the men who have been charged with travelling to Salisbury and poisoning former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the novichok nerve agent. Their real names were recently exposed as Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga.

However. the organisations did not demonstrate a clear link between the alleged efforts of Russian intelligence to penetrate the visa processing system the pair, who the Kremlin has claimed were tourists.

Officials in the UK have suggested they received legitimate visas based on the false documentation including passports they provided and have played down any possibility that the system was subverted.

The researchers said: “While our investigation does not definitively prove that Russian agencies were successful in these concrete efforts, it does paint a picture of a strategic, long-term Russian effort to compromise the visa issuance system, as well as to gather intelligence on potential travellers’ plans – both from Russia to Western Europe, and the other way around.”

The report comes as the United States announced that it is actively considering a more severe round of sanctions against Russia over the Skripal case.

In August, sanctions were imposed on Russia under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991.

US Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Christopher Ford said: “The second round of sanctions under the statue is a more draconian menu than the first round.“

Agencies contributed to this report