UK man charged with assisting Russian military spies in sabotage plot

A British man has been charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service after alleged contact with Russian military spies, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The charges against Joshua Cammidge, 31, came on Wednesday following his arrest last week by counterterrorism police.

He allegedly received instructions from a suspected representative of the GRU Volunteer Corps, a group controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency, with the intent to commit an act of sabotage.

Cammidge is set to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday.

Frank Ferguson, Chief Crown Prosecutor for the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said: “Prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to court and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings.”

Metropolitan Police said the British national was arrested by London Counter Terrorism and Wiltshire Police officers at an address on Friday in Swindon, a town in southwest England.

He was then taken to a London police station while officers conducted searches of a different Swindon address. The following day, he was further detained under the United Kingdom’s National Security Act.

The United Kingdom deemed the GRU Volunteer Corps a national security threat in July for collecting foreign intelligence and conducting hostile covert operations on behalf of Russian military spies.