Boris Johnson warns Russia that Britain is ‘prepared to respond’ to future cyber attack

BORIS Johnson last night warned Russia that Britain is ready to retaliate against its cyber attacks with our own crippling online assaults.

The senior Cabinet minister will demand the Kremlin halts it online campaign to sow chaos across the West’s democracies.

As the first British Foreign Secretary in five years to visit Moscow, he will hold tense talks with his bruiser Russian opposite number Sergei Lavrov.

It emerged this week that Britain is now able to cripple hostile states with cutting edge new cyber weapons.

Asked by The Sun last night whether the UK is ready to hit back to punish Russia, Boris said: “You can take it that in the last 18 months or so, we have certainly taken on that argument.

“The UK is certainly prepared to respond should we so desire. But I don’t want to get into what we are doing at the moment.”

Sending a clear message to the Kremlin, the Foreign Secretary added: “I can assure you that the UK is a world leader in this field.

“We do not conduct malign or disruptive cyber activity but the logic of deterrence is clearly something we now appreciate in the cyber field.”

The government let it be known that spy agency GCHQ has developed “high end” offensive tools to counter and retaliate against election hacking and cyber assaults that cripple computer networks.

Began three years, the National Offensive Cyber Programme has now boosted the UK’s electronic arsenal “very substantially”, a report by MPs on the Intelligence and Security Committee revealed on Wednesday.

Arriving in Moscow, Boris added: “Our relations with Russia cannot be ‘business as usual’ whilst Russia continues to attempt to destabilise European states, including Ukraine”.

A senior Foreign Office source added: “It is very important Russia understands the nature of our concern. If it does not stop what it is doing, it will see a very determined response from the West”.

Boris will also offer President Vladimir Putin an olive branch, adding: “We have a relationship with Russia that spans over 450 years. Our similarities and historical links far outweigh our current political disagreements.

“The Kremlin has positioned Russia in direct opposition to the West, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

The Kremlin will claim Boris’s trip is a propaganda coup. But insisting he was right to make it, the Foreign Secretary added: “The UK and Russia are permanent members of the UN Security Council, and its right that we continue to talk to each other”.

With world peace again at risk, Boris’s Moscow trip is his most important mission yet as Foreign Secretary.

It is the first time a British Foreign Secretary has been to Moscow in five years.

The trip – an invitation from Mr Lavrov – was initially set for April, but cancelled after Russia was suspected to be behind a sickening chemical gas attack on a rebel held town in northern Syria.

Recent Russian cyber attacks include on the US’s Central Command HQ, a French TV station and on British MPs just before the June general election.

Suspect Kremlin-linked Twitter accounts have also bombarded MPs who have criticised Russia or President Putin with abusive messages in “psychological warfare”.