During his annual speech, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said Russia’s intelligence agency is on a mission to cause “mayhem” on the streets of the United Kingdom. McCallum said that the increase in activity came after the U.K. backed Ukraine in its war against Russia.
“The GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets,” McCallum said. “We’ve seen arson, sabotage and more dangerous actions conducted with increased recklessness and having precisely the opposite effect of what the Russian state intends in driving increased operational coordination with partners across Europe and beyond.”
McCallum also noted that more than a third of MI5’s top priority investigations in the past month were linked to organized overseas terrorist groups, with Russia and Iran emerging as primary actors in plots against the U.K.
He warned that ISIS and Iranian-backed militant groups could launch attacks on U.K. soil.
“Today’s Islamic State is not the force it was a decade ago,” McCallum said. “But, after a few years of being pinned well back, they’ve resumed efforts to export terrorism.”
Since January 2022, Iran has been implicated in 20 “potentially lethal” plots targeting the U.K. McCallum described the significant increase occurring “at an unprecedented pace and scale.”
More than 750 Russian diplomats from Europe — many identified as spies — have been removed. McCallum warned of continued aggression on British soil.
MI5 also reported that 13% of individuals under investigation for terrorism are now under the age of 18. The agency said it is seeing “far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism.”
Since March 2017, MI5 and police have disrupted 43 late-stage terrorist plots, some involving plans for mass casualties using firearms and explosives.
