LONDON: The head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, the foreign spy service known as MI6, warned on Monday that Russia poses an “aggressive, expansionist, and revisionist” threat in her first speech since taking office.

Blaise Metreweli took over from Richard Moore in October, becoming the first female chief of MI6 — a role publicly known by the codename “C” — in its 116-year history.

“(Vladimir) Putin should be in no doubt, our support is enduring. The pressure we apply on Ukraine’s behalf will be sustained,” Metreweli said, according to advance extracts of her remarks.

“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.”

Britain has sanctioned several Russian business figures, political leaders, companies, ships, and entities, including the entire GRU military intelligence agency, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Over the weekend, Germany hosted US and Ukrainian delegations for talks on a ceasefire deal, before a summit in Berlin that included European leaders.

Metreweli also highlighted the need to ramp up the use of technology to tackle threats to UK security, including terrorism and information warfare.

“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. We must be as comfortable with lines of code as we are with human sources, as fluent in Python as we are in multiple languages,” she said.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2025