The new head of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, MI6, will warn the public that “the front lines are everywhere” in his first public address on Monday as Britain faces new threats.
Blaise Metreweri will start this fall, becoming the first female director in the Secret Service’s 116-year history. The director, commonly referred to as “C,” is the only publicly named member of the notoriously secretive organization.
In his speech at MI6 headquarters in London, Mr Metreweri is expected to highlight the increasingly complex landscape of threats facing the UK, including technological disruption, information manipulation and terrorism.
He will also address the serious threat posed by an “aggressive, expansionist, and revisionist” Russia, among other adversaries.
“Exporting chaos is a feature, not a bug, of Russia’s approach to international engagement, and we should be prepared for this to continue until[Russian President Vladimir]Putin is forced to change his calculus,” she is expected to say.
Security experts say Russia is waging a hybrid war against Ukraine’s Western allies following Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor. In Britain, police said Russian-backed agents set fire to a factory linked to Ukraine.
Elsewhere in Europe, drones spotted near airports have grounded flights, violated NATO airspace in Poland and Romania, and severed undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, raising fears of sabotage. Russia has not claimed responsibility for any involvement in these incidents.
Mr Metreweri will also emphasize the importance of mastering technology, whether in the lab, in the field or in the craft of MI6. He previously led the service’s technology and innovation teams, a role best known as “Q” in the James Bond movies.
“We have to be just as comfortable with lines of code as we are with human source, and we have to be as familiar with[computer programming language]Python as we are with multiple languages,” she is expected to say.
The Spy Secretary will end his speech by highlighting the power of human agency to tackle threats to Britain’s security.
“The defining challenge of the 21st century is not just who has the most powerful technology, but who guides it with the greatest wisdom. Our security, our prosperity, and our humanity depend on it,” Metreweri said.
In a more dangerous technologically mediated world, the chiefs will call for a “rediscovery of our common humanity” to determine how the future unfolds.
“What defines us is not what we can do, but what we choose to do. Those choices, the exercise of human agency, have shaped our world and will shape it again,” she is expected to say.
The MI6 chief’s speech came just a week after British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper’s speech highlighted the threat of information warfare. Mr Cooper said the government had sanctioned two China-based companies for “large scale and indiscriminate cyber operations against the UK and its allies”, as well as a number of organizations and individuals responsible for “conducting Russia’s information warfare”.
Earlier this year, MI6 launched an online portal aimed at using the dark web to lure potential spies into submitting sensitive information, specifically targeting Russia.
The portal, called Silent Courier, provides anonymous access to the secure MI6 messaging platform, allowing users to send information to British intelligence agencies from anywhere in the world. The announcement comes after former spy chief Richard Moore gave an extraordinary speech in Prague in July 2023, appealing to Russians to spy for Britain.
