The economic impact of hostile Russian activity against the UK amounts to at least £2–2.5bn a year.
This was stated in a report by Graham Downie, deputy chair of the UK’s cross-party parliamentary group on rearmament, the Financial Times reports.
The report, The Putin Tax, calculates the costs of disruption, recovery and investment in greater resilience caused by Russia’s hybrid war against the UK.
At the same time, the true figure is likely to be significantly higher than the estimate given.
The £2–2.5bn total includes £400–500m in average annual losses, calculated on the basis of major incidents attributed to Russia since 2022, including attacks on Jaguar Land Rover, Royal Mail and National Health Service (NHS) suppliers; £1.47bn in losses from Russia-linked cyberattacks, based on industry analysis and cyber-threat data; and £250–500m in losses from damage to subsea communications cables and related infrastructure.
The report also stresses that the UK has no single methodology for assessing the economic impact of hostile state activity, and many major incidents still have no cost estimate.
Cybersecurity experts said the growing economic losses reflect the central role of cyberattacks in the efforts of Russia and other states to cause harm while staying below the threshold of open armed conflict.
Downie’s report calls on the UK government to publish an annual report to Parliament with the projected cost of all hostile actions by foreign states against the UK, “with a more precise identification of specific states where possible”.
The report says the absence of such a hostile-activity report bringing together data from government, insurers and business is an anomaly, given that public bodies publish estimates of the cost of fraud, economic crime and flooding.
The report also calls on the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) — a unit of the UK intelligence agency GCHQ – to publish annual estimates of cyberattacks against the UK linked to foreign states, and on the government to run a public information campaign on threats from hostile states, cyber resilience and the country’s preparedness.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence, in line with the report’s recommendations, should develop and publish a methodology for assessing physical hostile activity directed against people, businesses, infrastructure and the UK’s interests.
- Russian intelligence services have been tasked with stepping up activity in EU and NATO countries. This concerns preparations for hybrid operations aimed at weakening support for Ukraine and the Alliance’s capabilities.