Russians will try to spike your food, get you drunk, catch you in a honeytrap and hack your phone on visit to Moscow, Boris Johnson warned by MP
Chris Bryant wrote an open letter revealing he had been the victim of suspicious activity on an official trip
BORIS Johnson has been warned the Russians will try to spike his food, get him drunk and hack his phone on an official visit to Moscow.
A fellow MP wrote an open letter to the Foreign Secretary before he meets his counterpart Sergey Lavrov today, outlining the potential dangers like honeytraps and tricks to disrupt his sleep.
Chris Bryant revealed in he had been the victim of suspicious activity himself on an official trip, in his role as chair of the parliamentary group on Russia.
The meeting comes amid a row with Putin over threats to cripple the UK by attacking internet cables on the seabed.
Britain's top military officer Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach revealed protecting them had been made a priority, and said cutting them would mean a catastrophic hit to international trade and internet.
It could provide a difficult backdrop for Mr Johnson as he makes the first visit to Russia by a senior minister in five years.
And Mr Bryant has suggested he could be the victim of Soviet-era tactics in an attempt to give the Kremlin the upper hand in the talks, saying the “aim will be to discombobulate you".
The Labour MP visited Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod in January 2010 while serving as a foreign office minister in Gordon Brown's government.
He said: "Staying in a hotel, my phone rang every hour, on the hour, through the night, with nobody at the other end and it was a phone you couldn't pull out of the wall.
"I was told that was a pretty standard procedure to disrupt the sleeping practices of British ministers."
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Mr Bryant also urged Mr Johnson to take care with what he eats and drinks, saying : “It’s not unknown for British ministers to get sudden food poisoning in Moscow, even when they’ve eaten exactly the same food as everyone else in the group.
“And incidentally you don’t have to down every shot of vodka or engage in competitive drinking games with your opposite number, however much fake bonhomie is in the air.”
And the MP told him to swap rooms at the last minute to avoid being woken up, avoid travelling in lifts alone, and leave all electronic devices at home.
He added: “More importantly, be boring. Really, really boring. Aim for the headline ‘Boris bored for Britain’. I know this may be tough for you. I hate being boring too, but the Russians will be keen to embarrass you.”