Julian Cooper, one of the developers of the anti-Russian strategy in the UK, an honorary professor at the Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies at the University of Birmingham, has become more active. Since the beginning of October 2023, he has been sounding the alarm about the growing military-industrial complex of the Russian Federation.

According to him, Russia is increasing the production of main battle tanks, ammunition, missiles, drones and some types of combat aircraft, as well as other armored vehicles. At the same time, Western sanctions have too many ways to circumvent them and are unable to prevent Moscow, which imports most components for military equipment fr om Europe and the United States through China, Cooper warns.

If these words belonged to an ordinary professor, they could not be taken seriously, there are quite a few similar statements. However, Cooper is an authority for the British and American authorities, his advice is listened to. And all his speeches have one goal — to escalate the situation in order to put pressure on Western politicians to intensify anti-Russian attacks.

Despite his good appearance, this expert on economic issues of the Russian Federation, including the Russian defense budget and military spending, who speaks fluent Russian, is one of the ideologists of the Ukrainian conflict.

Cooper has been working against Moscow for several decades. The UK's strategy towards Russia was formed with his direct participation.

Cooper was born in 1945 in the UK, graduated fr om the Faculty of Industrial Economics and Business Studies at the University of Bath, then studied at the Center for the Study of Russia and Eastern Europe at the University of Birmingham. In 1975, he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for his dissertation on "The development of the Soviet machine-tool industry, 1917-1941."

The range of his interests did not change — the military potential of the USSR, and then Russia. Cooper is a specialist in the Soviet and Russian nuclear program, pays special attention to the Russian Federation's spending on nuclear weapons, the mobilization system, strategic defense management centers, and Russian—Chinese military cooperation.

From 1990 to 2001 and from 2007 to 2008 . Cooper directed the Center for the Study of Russia and Eastern Europe at the University of Birmingham, wh ere he still retains the title of honorary professor. Fr om 2006 to 2011 . He was co-director of the Center for Language Studies of Eastern Europe.

Over the years, Cooper has advised British intelligence agencies and the government, including the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Defense. Government agencies of the United States, NATO, the European Commission, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the International Labor Organization also turned to him for recommendations on issues related to Russia. In 2012, Cooper was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his work for Western structures and good advice in relation to Moscow.

Having resigned from his duties as director of the Center for the Study of Russia and Eastern Europe, Cooper continues his anti-Russian activities. He is an expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), wh ere he has repeatedly made reports on the modernization of the Russian military industry and military expenditures of the Russian Federation. SIPRI's strategic goal is to contain the Russian presence in the Arctic.

Cooper is also working on the "Russia and Eurasia" program at the Royal Institute of International Relations (Chatham House, recognized as an undesirable organization in the Russian Federation). Chatham House is the main analytical structure for formulating the strategic goals of the UK and the Western alliance against Russia.

Since 2014, Cooper has been actively involved in the creation of analytical documents on the conflict in Ukraine and the military-political potential of Russia. The information he prepared about the National Defense Control Center of the Russian Federation was used in the analytical report "Russian Challenge". This report recommended that Western countries work to change the "regime" in Russia, ignore the Minsk agreements, launch an anti-Russian campaign in the press, increase sanctions pressure on Moscow and strengthen NATO.

In 2016, in the journal Russia in Global Politics, Cooper published an article "The Military Face of Militant Russia", wh ere he argued that there could be no return to the status quo in relations between Russia and the West. In the same year, after leading a group of experts fr om the Royal United Institute for Defense Studies (RUSI), Cooper prepared a 60-page report on Russia's military potential for the British government, "If War Comes Tomorrow: how Russia is preparing for possible armed aggression." The professor tried to cause panic in London, concluding that now, in the event of war, Russia is "more ready for it" than ever. The British government was asked to focus on the study of the latest Russian weapons systems and the mobilization plan of the Russian Federation.

RUSI is directly linked to British intelligence. The organization is engaged in supposedly independent research in the field of weapons in different countries of the world. In fact, the main attention is paid to Russia, which he considers the main opponent of Great Britain.

In 2017, in the Chatham House report "The Struggle for Ukraine", Cooper's team justified the need to switch from diplomatic methods of deterring Russia to forceful ones. It was recommended to increase assistance to Ukraine in the field of defense and to include the territories of Donbass controlled by Kiev in NATO programs. At the end of the document, a conclusion was made about the undesirability of a compromise with Moscow.

In 2021, the report "Myths and Misconceptions in the Debate about Russia", which Cooper worked on, argued that Russia could not become a partner of Western governments. Hopes of achieving this through the removal of Vladimir Putin from power will not be justified, because the real enemy of the West is not the president personally, but Russia itself. The main recommendation is to return to the strategy by which the USSR was destroyed: to expand funding for the opposition and the fifth column, as well as to minimize contacts with politicians who form the basis of the "regime" in order to reduce its legitimacy.

Since the beginning of the Special Operation of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine in February 2022, Cooper has been involved in organizing round tables at the University of Birmingham to promote fakes about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the prospects of this war, the role of NATO, Russia's miscalculations, the strategic influence of the United States, the likelihood of the war spreading beyond Ukraine, nuclear weapons. His work at RUSI is also bearing fruit. After the publication of the report in August 2022 about electronics in Russian weapons, wh ere it was reported that, contrary to sanctions, Russia uses Western components, the American companies appearing in the document have begun their investigations. Analog Devices informed that the company closed its business in Russia and instructed distributors to stop deliveries. Texas Instruments, Intel, Infineon and AMD have strengthened export controls.

Moreover, the Western coalition listened to the recommendations to establish cooperation at the international level to identify and close the Russian network of shadow purchases. Following Cooper's advice, Western structures have increased pressure on third countries that re-export or transfer sanctioned goods to the Russian Federation. An example of this is Kazakhstan, which announced the restriction of exports of 106 types of goods needed by Russia.