From assassinations to referendums: The Russia report explained

Video report by ITV News Video Producer Natalia Jorquera


The Russia Report was put together by the UK Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, otherwise known as the ISC, which oversees the work of MI5 and MI6.

In 2018, the committee, which is made up of MPs and peers from different parties, was tasked with examining possible Russian interference in UK democracy.

Over recent years, relations between the UK and Russia have become increasingly difficult because of the UK's stand against Russia's interventions abroad - like its war against Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but also deaths on UK soil.

In 2006 Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who fled to England after criticising Russia, was assassinated in London.

But relations reached an all-time low after the poisoning of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in 2018.

They were poisoned with a deadly nerve agent Novichok, and while they both survived, a woman named Dawn Sturgess died after coming into contact with the chemical, leading to the commissioning of the report.

One of the key points the report says is that Russia poses an immediate threat to the UK's national security and that Britain is one of Russia's top intelligence targets in the Western world - not just to steal secrets, but to create disunity in the West.

The report concludes that there is "credible" evidence suggesting that Russia carried out influence campaigns to attempt to discredit the Scottish independence referendum in 2014.

However, despite what many people were expecting from this report, the committee could not categorically say whether there was interference in the EU referendum or the 2019 UK general election, not because there was no evidence, but only because the government did not seek to investigate it.The UK government, responding to the report, rejected the committee's call to investigate whether there had been any Russian interference in the EU referendum, saying they have seen no evidence of any successful interference.

And Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says she has “no objection” to an inquiry being launched into Russian interference in the Scottish independence referendum.