The director of the British MI5, Ken McCallum, has warned that Russia is encouraging "sustained violence on the streets of Europe" and instigating "arson, sabotage, and dangerous actions in the UK." According to McCallum, more than 750 Russian diplomats have been expelled from European countries since the beginning of the Ukraine war, "and the vast majority of them were spies."
In a rare public intervention, the head of the British Security Service assures that Russian officials have been operating in recent years as "private intelligence agents" with the mission of doing the "dirty work" and creating disruption in Europe and the UK as part of a hybrid war.
His statements come alongside a new round of sanctions against Russia for "the aberrant and inhumane use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine" and in flagrant violation of international law. The British government emphasizes how "Putin's mafia state agents" were responsible for the use of the Novichok nerve agent on the streets of Salisbury in 2018 (in the attack against Sergei and Yulia Skripal).
Additionally, the MI5 director stated that since 2017, up to 43 attempted attacks on British soil have been discovered in time. Twenty of them have had a direct link to Iran since 2022. The other half is related to the Islamic State or the activity of far-right groups. The number of investigated plots has increased by 48% in the last year.
"The complex web of threats is such that the MI5 has had a devilish task on its hands," admitted Ken McCallum. "In the first 20 years of my career, we mainly had to deal with terrorist threats. Now we have to deal with plots and assassination attempts by state-backed agents, against the backdrop of a major war in Europe."