The new chief of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of deliberately prolonging negotiations to put an end to the war in Ukraine, in an assessment that complicates President Donald Trump’s efforts to broker a deal by year-end.
“We all continue to face the menace of an aggressive, expansionist and revisionist Russia, seeking to subjugate Ukraine and NATO members,” Blaise Metreweli said in her first public appearance since she became head of MI6 in September. She said of Putin: “He is dragging out negotiations and shifting the cost of war onto his own population.”
“Putin should be in no doubt, our support is enduring. The pressure we apply on Ukraine’s behalf will be sustained,” she added, in comments that may imply UK intelligence officials think Russia sees its advantage in fighting through the winter.
Metreweli’s words suggest there has been little alteration in Western security officials’ assessment that Putin doesn’t intend to stop fighting in Ukraine anytime soon, despite talks to end the war that have taken place between the Kremlin and American negotiators in recent weeks.
Last month, her predecessor Richard Moore told Bloomberg the latest intelligence he’d had access to before leaving his post indicated the same.
The Trump administration has made a renewed push for peace in recent weeks. A US delegation led by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner held talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and European national security advisers on Sunday, in an effort to establish a framework for a deal that could be accepted by both Kyiv and Moscow.
Earlier this month, Witkoff and Kushner met Putin for several hours of talks in the Kremlin. On Sunday, Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy aide to Putin, warned that Russia deems some of the Ukrainian proposals for a settlement “unacceptable,” citing as example that Russia “1 million percent” won’t cede control of the Crimean peninsula it annexed in 2014.
Metreweli, the first female MI6 chief, was making 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 technology chief, a role known as ‘Q’ that was made globally famous in the James Bond movie franchise.
She argued “the defining challenge of the 21st century is not simply who wields the most powerful technologies, but who guides them with the greatest wisdom.” She listed artificial intelligence, biotechnology and quantum computing as having the potential to create “science-fiction-like tools” that offered both challenge and reward.
“As China will be a central part of the global transformation taking place this century, it is essential that we, as MI6, continue to inform the government’s understanding of China’s rise and the implications for UK national security,” Metreweli added, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer prepares to visit Beijing next month.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
