London and Moscow need a new informal communication channel to avoid "miscalculations", the British defense secretary has said. The Financial Times. Britain and Russia must seek new channels of communication to avoid the "risk of miscalculation" arising from "state terrorism" from Moscow, British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting said. Britain lags behind allies France and Germany in the number of political and diplomatic channels of communication with Vladimir Putin's regime. "We have an embassy in Moscow. It is an important channel. I would prefer there to be more channels, especially at a military level there is always a risk of miscalculation, and that is why it is so important to have direct communication," Streeting told the FT newspaper. British officials emphasized that London has tried to re-establish informal communication channels with senior Defense Ministry officials in Moscow, but has so far been rebuffed. "It now appears that a miscalculation poses a greater risk than a deliberate escalation," one government official said. Since 2022, there have been no negotiations between the UK Chief of Defense Staff or the UK Defense Secretary with their Russian counterparts. The head of Britain's secret intelligence service MI6 occasionally contacted his Russian counterpart, but this was rare and did not provide sufficient channels of communication with Moscow's military intelligence, a source familiar with the situation said. A former British national security official stated that "one of Russia's tactics is to claim that Britain is not important and does not deserve involvement, so creating and managing these channels is part of the psychological judo in Anglo-Russian relations."