MI6 chief says UK faces threat from Russia's desire to export chaos around the world

The new head of the UK’s foreign intelligence service, MI6, warned on Monday of how Russian President Vladimir Putin's determination to export chaos around the world is rewriting the rules of conflict and creating new security challenges.

Blaise Metreweli used her first public speech to say that Britain faces increasingly unpredictable and interconnected threats, with emphasis on an "aggressive, expansionist" Russia.

"The export of chaos is a feature not a bug in the Russian approach to international engagement and we should be ready for this to continue until Putin is forced to change his calculus," she said.

The MI6 chief, known as C, is the only employee of the spy agency whose name is made public.

Metreweli, who took over from Richard Moore at the end of September, was previously the MI6 director of technology and innovation.

She said that technological savvy and human intelligence are both key to combating hybrid threats and MI6 officers "must be as comfortable with lines of code as we are with human sources, as fluent in Python as we are in multiple languages."

The speech is the latest in a series of warnings by Western defence and security authorities about the growing hybrid threat from states such as Russia, Iran and China, whose use of cyber tools, espionage and influence operations they say threatens global stability.

Last week, the UK imposed sanctions on several Russian media outlets for alleged information warfare and two Chinese tech firms for "vast and indiscriminate cyber-activities."

Metreweli is the first woman to hold the post since MI6 was founded in 1909.

Britain's two other main intelligence agencies have already shattered the spy world's glass ceiling.

MI5, the domestic intelligence service, was led by Stella Rimington between 1992-1996 and Eliza Manningham-Buller between 2002-2007. Anne Keast-Butler became head of the electronic and cyber intelligence agency GCHQ in 2023.

Support for Ukraine

The spy chief's warning comes amid a flurry of diplomatic meetings aimed at ending the almost four-year Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met US envoys on Sunday in Berlin and met with the leaders of Germany, France and Britain on Monday.

Kyiv's allies are trying to bolster support for Ukraine amid Washington's pressure to swiftly accept a US-brokered peace deal.

In a separate speech, the head of the British military, Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton, said on Monday that Putin's aim is "to challenge, limit, divide and ultimately destroy NATO."

"The war in Ukraine shows Putin’s willingness to target neighbouring states, including their civilian populations...threatens the whole of NATO, including the UK," Knighton will say, arguing that Britain needs both a stronger military and more resilient infrastructure to meet the evolving threat.