Russia testing West below threshold of war, says UK intelligence head

LONDON

Britain’s new head of MI6 has warned that the UK and its allies are operating in a dangerous “space between peace and war,” as she used her first public speech to set out what she described as an “interlocking web of security challenges” dominated by the threat from Russia.

Blaise Metreweli, the first woman to lead the Secret Intelligence Service, said Moscow is “testing us in the grey zone with tactics that are just below the threshold of war.”

Speaking on Monday, Metreweli portrayed Russia as an increasingly destabilizing force, referring to “the menace of an aggressive, expansionist, and revisionist Russia” and stressing that the UK would continue to support Ukraine and maintain pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

She pointed to drones appearing over airports and airbases in Europe, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, and disinformation campaigns as examples of Russia’s hybrid warfare.

The recent sanctioning of Russian entities accused of information warfare illustrated a broader strategy, she said: “The export of chaos is a feature, not a bug, in this Russian approach to international engagement.”

Metreweli, who took over from Richard Moore on Oct. 1, also signaled a renewed emphasis on technology inside MI6.

Calling on staff to master digital skills alongside classic espionage techniques, she said: “We will become as comfortable with lines of [computer] code as we are with human sources, as fluent in Python as we are in multiple languages.”