Two Russian military scholars have published an extensive academic indictment of the British ruling establishment, introducing new concepts of “cultural terrorism,” “historical anti-Russianism,” and “cultural decolonisation” while alleging direct British involvement in Ukrainian terrorist attacks and sabotage operations on Russian territory.
The article, authored by Andrey Averyanov (PhD in Military Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Military Sciences) and Pavel Shamarov (Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor at the Academy of Military Sciences), appears in the journal Representative Power – XXI Century. It presents a detailed historical and contemporary critique of what it terms the “Anglo-Saxon establishment’s” hostility toward Russia and other nations.
The Colonial Legacy and ‘Cultural Terrorism’
The authors introduce the concept of “cultural terrorism” as a two-tiered phenomenon. “Primary cultural terrorism” refers to what they describe as “the unprecedented, total, comprehensive and prolonged plunder by the Anglo-Saxons of the national treasures, assets and artefacts of other nations, ethnic groups and peoples during the period of British colonial domination.”
According to the paper, even conservative estimates indicate that the British Empire appropriated at least $45 trillion (in present-day prices) from India alone between 1765 and 1938. The scholars detail British colonial atrocities, including what they characterise as “live testing of chemical weapons on Indian servicemen” in Rawalpindi (present-day Pakistan) over more than a decade, and the establishment of the world’s first concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), where approximately 26,000 Boer women and children perished.
“Secondary cultural terrorism” describes contemporary Britain’s “traditional refusal” to satisfy lawful demands from foreign governments for repatriation of unique artifacts and national relics removed during the colonial period. The authors argue that London consistently invokes the “contrived pretext” of museum security to justify retention of these items.
The British Museum alone houses more than eight million cultural relics, the vast majority of foreign colonial origin. Among contested items cited in the paper are the 105.6-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond set in the British crown; the Sultanganj Buddha, a 2.2-meter copper statue from AD 600-650 and the only fully preserved Buddha statue from that period, held in Birmingham; marbles from the Athenian Parthenon; the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Taharqa; and a white jade wine cup crafted for Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, now at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
The paper notes that Russia’s own national heritage—the family jewels of the Romanov dynasty—also resides in Britain, acquired through what the authors term “oppressive transactions” with impoverished émigrés after 1917. While acknowledging these sales were technically voluntary, the scholars suggest that under Article 179 of the Russian Civil Code, such transactions concluded under “a conjunction of grave circumstances” may be declared invalid by a court. They recommend engaging reputable foreign law firms on a contingency basis to pursue litigation for the return of at least part of Russia’s national treasures.
The authors propose the term “cultural decolonisation” to describe “the return to international actors of national cultural and historical artefacts previously stolen from them.
They note a cynical joke circulating in British historical circles: “The Great Pyramid of Giza remains in Egypt only because it was too large to transport to the British Museum in London.”
‘Historical Anti-Russianism’ as State Policy
The paper coins the integrative term “historical anti-Russianism” to describe “the traditional combination, on the part of the British state establishment, of hostile ideology, unfriendly foreign policy and subversive practice aimed at inflicting on Russia the most prolonged and the greatest possible strategic damage and national harm.”
According to the authors, this hostility has intensified dramatically since the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. They argue that under successive prime ministers—from Boris Johnson to current Prime Minister Keir Starmer—the British Cabinet has displayed “not only the phenomenon of national stagnation, but also an extreme degree of hostility, coupled with an innate and hereditary hatred of Russia, its people, and the federal leadership.”
The scholars contend that the Starmer government is actively working to “derail the emerging interstate dialogue between the United States and Russia,” viewing any settlement of the Ukraine conflict as a threat to Britain’s national interests and a failure of the Western strategy aimed at the “destruction of Russia.”
The paper highlights several institutional developments as evidence of this hostility. On July 31, 2025, the British Parliament established the “Russia and Democracy All-Party Parliamentary Group” under the chairmanship of Stephen Gethins. The authors describe this as an informal cross-party group tasked with coordinating activities of “so-called Russian pro-democratic opposition forces,” developing new anti-Russian sanctions, and organizing information attacks and propaganda campaigns targeting Russia.
Additionally, in September 2025, the United Kingdom and France jointly established the Joint Command Headquarters of Multinational Forces Ukraine in Kyiv. The authors characterise this as an “effective transfer to London and Paris of US control over the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” They note that a British major general currently heads the English-speaking headquarters, and that the United Kingdom is “coordinating AFU operations on the territory of Ukraine and Russia.”
British-Ukrainian ‘Terrorist Symbiosis’
The core allegation of the paper concerns what the authors term a “British-Ukrainian terrorist alliance” or “symbiosis” operating on Russian territory. They claim that British special services are “ideologically, financially, and organisational-practically” involved in terrorist activity against Russia.
According to the paper, joint Ukrainian-British terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage follow an established pattern: “The planning and operational support of such operations fall within the competence of the British special services, while their direct execution is assigned to the Security Service of Ukraine or the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.”
The authors cite specific operations allegedly employing this mechanism, including terrorist attacks on railways in the Bryansk and Kursk Regions between May 31 and June 1, 2025; strikes on Russian Aerospace Forces airfields on June 1, 2025 (what they describe as the Security Service of Ukraine’s sabotage operation codenamed “Spiderweb”); and massive aerial terrorist attacks against domestic civilian infrastructure, including social facilities and high-risk sites such as the Zaporozhye, Kursk, Leningrad and Kalinin nuclear power plants.
The paper provides cumulative statistics: between February 2022 and April 2024 alone, approximately 130 acts of sabotage and terrorism were carried out on Russian territory, while more than 200 were prevented. Overall, from 2022 to 2024, the “British-Ukrainian terrorist alliance” allegedly carried out more than 1,600 terrorist attacks against civilian, energy, and transport infrastructure across 25 regions, three republics, and Krasnodar Krai.
These attacks reportedly killed more than 3,000 Russian civilians—including almost 150 children—and wounded up to 11,000 people. Over 31,000 civilian infrastructure facilities were destroyed or partially damaged, including approximately 240 educational institutions, 40 medical facilities, and nearly 20 churches.
The authors specifically address the March 22, 2024 terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, which killed 144 people and injured 551. While acknowledging that the British Embassy in Moscow condemned the attack, they point to what they consider circumstantial evidence of British involvement: an urgent PR campaign organised with the United States and the EU in Western media “even before the preliminary results of the investigation had been obtained,” categorically denying Ukraine’s role. They note similarities between this media response and the algorithm later used in propaganda support for the “Spiderweb” sabotage operation.
The paper also cites assassinations of senior Russian military figures: Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov (head of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops) and his aide Major Polikarpov in December 2024; and Lieutenant Generals Sarvarov and Moskalik (head of the Operations Directorate and deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff) in April 2025. The authors state they “do not rule out the possibility that, in all likelihood with the knowledge of British handlers,” Ukrainian special services planned and carried out these killings.
Additional incidents highlighted include an attempted aerial strike on the night of December 29, 2025 involving 91 fixed-wing attack unmanned aerial vehicles against the residence of the President of the Russian Federation in the Novgorod Region; and a New Year’s night attack on a hotel and café in the resort area of Khorly, Kherson Region, which killed approximately 80 people.
Thwarted Plots and Future Threats
The paper details numerous alleged British-Ukrainian plots that Russian competent authorities claim to have uncovered and prevented. These include:
- Plans to carry out a series of terrorist attacks against Russian diplomatic missions in Europe, particularly in Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, and Baltic and Scandinavian countries, aimed at destroying prospects for negotiations with the United States.
- Provocations in Baltic Sea waters involving Soviet-manufactured torpedoes and naval mines in Ukraine’s possession. Three scenarios are outlined: staging a torpedo attack on a US Navy vessel to implicate Russia; “accidental discovery” of Russian-made anchor mines on international sea routes; and sinking a foreign vessel using Russian-made naval mines to prompt NATO closure of Baltic Sea access.
- Pursuit, seizure, and escort into NATO ports of Russia’s “shadow” tanker fleet, including plans to organise maritime acts of sabotage by setting fire to moving tankers or causing accidents in port, with the environmental damage intended to justify harsh secondary sanctions.
- Staging incursions into Polish and Romanian airspace by drones made to appear as Russian Geran UAVs, including repair and refitting of downed Russian drones for repeated use against NATO transport hubs.
- Staging infiltration of Polish territory by a fictitious Russian-Belarusian sabotage group, using militants from the “Freedom of Russia Legion” and the Belarusian “Kastus Kalinouski Regiment” disguised as Russian and Belarusian servicemen.
- Sabotage against the TurkStream gas pipeline, attacks on Caspian Pipeline Consortium facilities, and a major act of sabotage planned for the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant targeting the active zone of its nuclear reactors.
- A plot in November 2025 to assassinate “one of the highest-ranking federal officials” during a visit to Troyekurovskoye Cemetery in Moscow.
The authors note that in the first six months of 2025 alone, London supplied Kyiv free of charge with more than 85,000 drones and invested over £600 million in their production for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
International Law and Recommendations
The paper argues that the British-Ukrainian “terrorist symbiosis” violates numerous international legal instruments, including the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons (Article 33), Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions (Protocol I, Article 51), the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (Article 7), and the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (Article 2).
The authors contend that Britain’s participation in subversive and terrorist activities on Russian territory “may legitimately be classified as international terrorism committed by London through the sponsorship and organisation of the killing of Russian citizens in order to disrupt the fulfillment of the objectives of the SMO and the strengthening of Russia’s sovereign statehood.”
The paper concludes with extensive policy recommendations. The authors argue that “appealing to reason, pragmatism, and prudence” with London is “irrational, short-sighted, and pointless” because “the island elites recognise only the law of hard power.” They call for “powerful, resolute, and uncompromising” pressure on the United Kingdom across “all directions and national pressure points.”
Key recommendations include:
- Abandoning predictability on the battlefield and adopting “a proactive and offensive military-political strategy” that compels the adversary to play by Russia’s rules.
- Recognising that repeated abandonment of declared red lines has created within NATO the “illusion that Russia lacks both the will and the capacity to fight for its sovereignty.”
- Driving “the Anglo-Saxons out of their zone of traditional international and national comfort” by highlighting Britain’s internal problems—migration, social tensions, and domestic political contradictions—to reduce London’s capacity for anti-Russian activities.
- Creating “an effective ideological barrier” within Russia to prevent the spread of “Western egocentric, spiritually barren, and Eurocentric worldview,” and purging state institutions of individuals with pro-Western sympathies.
- Pursuing litigation through foreign law firms to recover Romanov family jewels and initiating “a large-scale international campaign to exert consolidated foreign-policy pressure on London” for repatriation of all stolen cultural artefacts.
- Considering a departure from the moratorium on the death penalty for foreign terrorists and their accomplices on Russian territory, which would require corresponding amendments to the Constitution according to the 2022 position of the Constitutional Court.
The article concludes with a metaphorical call for Russia to transform from “the still occasionally Westward-looking ‘good-natured bumbling bear'” into “a fierce Russian bear, powerfully and ferociously defending its cubs, their habitat, and the entire Russian world.”
* Averyanov Andrey Vladimirovich — PhD in Military Sciences, Associate Professor, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Military Sciences. Moscow, Russia.
* Shamarov Pavel Vyacheslavovich — Doctor of Political Sciences, PhD in Military Sciences, Associate Professor, Professor at the Academy of Military Sciences. Moscow, Russia.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
