Russian attempts to pay spies for “terrorism” must be treated like efforts to funnel cash to ISIS and Al-Qaeda jihadis, ministers have been told.

The Government must tell bank bosses and crypto-currency firms to include Kremlin sabotage operations in a “re-energised” effort to crack down on terrorist financing, think-tank RUSI said.

Russian intelligence agencies hire moles to carry out arson attacks, often paying them with cryptocurrencies.

A British national who ordered an arson attack on a warehouse holding satellite equipment and humanitarian aid for Ukrainian forces had a cryptocurrency account with almost £60,000 in it.

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And the highly respected think-tank, RUSI, said in a submission to an inquiry into the National Security Strategy, that Moscow is paying criminals it finds on social media.

They said: “Since 9/11, the global finance and security community has placed ‘combatting the finance of terrorism’ at the centre of the broad response to terrorism.

“In the UK, this expertise had developed in the decades that preceded the al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington DC as security authorities sought to disrupt the activity of the Provisional IRA.