The new head of Britain’s MI6 foreign intelligence service has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of deliberately prolonging talks to end the war in Ukraine, complicating President Donald Trump’s efforts to broker a deal by the end of the year.
“We all continue to face the threat of an aggressive, expansionist and revisionist Russia seeking to subjugate Ukraine and NATO members,” Blaise Metreweli said in her first public appearance since becoming head of MI6 in September. She said of Putin: “He is dragging out negotiations and shifting the costs of war onto his own population.”
“Putin should be in no doubt, our support is permanent. The pressure we are putting on behalf of Ukraine will be permanent,” she added, in comments that may suggest British intelligence officials think Russia sees an advantage in the fight over the winter.
Metreweli’s words suggest little has changed in the assessment of Western security officials that Putin has no intention of ending the fighting in Ukraine anytime soon, despite talks on ending the war that have taken place between the Kremlin and US negotiators in recent weeks.
Last month, her predecessor, Richard Moore, told Bloomberg that the latest intelligence he had access to before leaving office suggested the same.
The Trump administration has again sought peace in recent weeks. A US delegation led by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner held talks Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European national security advisers in an effort to create a framework for a deal that could be accepted by both Kiev and Moscow.
Earlier this month, Witkoff and Kushner met with Putin for several hours of talks in the Kremlin. On Sunday, Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, warned that Russia considers some of Ukraine’s settlement proposals “unacceptable,” citing as an example that Russia “1 million percent” will not relinquish control of the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014.
Metreweli, the first female head of MI6, gave her first speech in her new role from the agency’s London headquarters. She also:
Much of Metreweli’s speech was devoted to her personal experience in her former position as MI6’s chief technology officer, a role known as ‘Q’, made famous worldwide by the James Bond film franchise.
She argued that “the defining challenge of the 21st century is not just who controls the most powerful technologies, but who guides them with the greatest wisdom”. She cited artificial intelligence, biotechnology and quantum computing as having the potential to create “science fiction-like tools” that offer both challenge and reward.
“As China will be central to the global transformation taking place this century, it is essential that we as MI6 continue to inform the government of an understanding of China’s rise and the implications for the UK’s national security,” Metreweli added, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer prepares to visit Beijing next month.
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