British spies are concerned that sharing anti-Russian intelligence with the American government could lead to their agents’ cover being blown, security sources have told The Mail on Sunday.
The sources said British spy chiefs have been ‘significantly rationing’ what information they passed to their counterparts in the CIA since Donald Trump won the presidential election last year.
One source even claimed that some Western agents operating in Russia and Ukraine had been extracted – discreetly and overland – as a protective measure, given Mr Trump’s emollient attitude towards the Kremlin.
President Trump said this weekend that he was finding it ‘more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine’ than Russia, telling reporters that the US was ‘doing very well’ with Moscow.
The Americans want Volodymyr Zelensky to sign a deal that would give them a major stake in Ukrainian mineral resources and agree a truce with Moscow.
However the Ukrainian president will not do so without firm security guarantees. Mr Trump’s senior officials will travel to Saudi Arabia next week to discuss the plan with Mr Zelensky’s team.
Last night, Downing Street strongly denied there had been any change in intelligence-sharing protocols, but separate senior sources claimed that precautionary decisions were being made by the agencies on an operational basis and without ministerial oversight or sanction.
Security minister Dan Jarvis is also understood to have held meetings with Sir Richard Moore, head of MI6, and Sir Ken McCallum, head of MI5, regarding the security of British intelligence.
