MI6 chief warns Putin: We won’t abandon Ukraine

 The new head of MI6 will on Monday attack an “aggressive, expansionist” Russia, warning Vladimir Putin that Britain’s spies will not abandon Ukraine.

In her first speech from the MI6 headquarters, Blaise Metreweli will declare Britain’s commitment to Kyiv is steadfast, saying: “Putin should be in no doubt, our support is enduring. The pressure we apply on Ukraine‘s behalf will be sustained.”

Describing the risk Moscow poses to Britain, the 48-year-old, who took over as the head of the Secret Intelligence Service on Oct 1, will say: “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.”

The intervention comes as Donald Trump’s administration continues to push for a peace deal to be in place by Christmas and pressures Ukraine to make significant territorial concessions.

Sir Keir Starmer will join Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, Mr Trump’s envoys, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, in Berlin on Monday to discuss the revised peace plan.

Warning that “the front line is everywhere”, Ms Metreweli, who previously served as the head of MI6’s technical branch, the position popularised as “Q” in the James Bond franchise, will also say the agency’s “mastery of technology must infuse everything we do”.

“Not just in our labs, but in the field, in our tradecraft, and even more importantly, in the mindset of every officer,” the spy chief will say.

Ms Metreweli will add: “We must be as comfortable with lines of code as we are with human sources, as fluent in Python [the programming language] as we are in multiple languages.”

The focus on technology will come with a warning that the rules of conflict are being rewritten by Russia and other hostile actors, and that the world faces a new “age of uncertainty”.

Russia has previously been accused of engaging in a hybrid war against Europe, using cyber attacks and drones in an attempt to create chaos and confusion.

A devastating cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover earlier this year cost an estimated £1.9bn while similar disruption to Marks and Spencer cost £300m.

UK Defence Intelligence has also warned that the Russian president is modernising his Naval fleet to target critical undersea cables and pipelines, with the Government reporting a 30 per cent increase in Russian vessels threatening UK waters in the past two years.

Against this backdrop, Ms Metreweli is expected to say today’s “defining challenge … is not simply who wields the most powerful technologies but who guides them with the greatest wisdom”.

Ms Metreweli succeeded Sir Richard Moore earlier this year to become the first woman to lead the foreign intelligence service in its 116-year history.

She studied anthropology at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was in the crew that beat Oxford in the 1997 women’s Boat Race. She joined MI6 as a case officer in 1999.

In June it was reported that her grandfather was a Nazi spy known as “The Butcher” who defected from Soviet Russia to become an informant in Chernihiv, Ukraine.

An MI6 spokesman later clarified that Ms Metreweli “neither knew nor met her paternal grandfather”.

They added: “Blaise’s ancestry is characterised by conflict and division and, as is the case for many with eastern European heritage, only partially understood.

“It is precisely this complex heritage which has contributed to her commitment to prevent conflict and protect the British public from modern threats from today’s hostile states, as the next chief of MI6.”

Sir Richard Knighton, Britain’s Chief of Defence Staff, will also warn that the price of peace is “increasing” and that more money is needed to properly prepare the nation for war.

In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute, Sir Richard will say the response requires “our whole nation stepping up” to build “national resilience”.

Sir Richard will add: “It’s about our defence and resilience being a higher national priority for all of us. An ‘all-in’ mentality.

“And that will require people who are not soldiers, sailors or aviators to nevertheless invest their skills – and money – in innovation and problem-solving on the nation’s behalf.”

Last week Mark Rutte, Nato’s Secretary General, issued a stark warning against complacency over the threat from Putin, telling the alliance: “We must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great grandparents endured.”

On Saturday, Mr Merz warned of a shifting relationship with the US, saying “the decades of Pax Americana are largely over”.

It comes amid further talks over a peace deal in Ukraine. European leaders have expressed reservations that Moscow may be “rewarded” with territorial gains under US peace proposals, and Sir Keir has stressed the need for “hard-edged security guarantees” for Ukraine.