\n The new head of Britain\u2019s foreign intelligence service MI6 will warn the nation that the \u201cfront line is everywhere\u201d in her first public speech on Monday, as the UK faces emerging threats.\n <\/p>\n
\n Blaise Metreweli became the first female chief<\/a> of the Secret Intelligence Service\u2019s 116-year history when she took up her post this fall. Commonly referred to as \u201cC,\u201d the chief is the only publicly named member of the famously secretive organization.\n <\/p>\n \n In a speech at MI6 HQ in London, Metreweli is expected to highlight the increasingly complex landscape of threats facing the UK, including technological disruption, information manipulation and terrorism.\n <\/p>\n \n The chief will also address the acute threat posed by an \u201caggressive, expansionist, and revisionist\u201d Russia, alongside other hostile actors.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe 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 (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is forced to change his calculus,\u201d she is expected to say.\n <\/p>\n \n Security experts say Russia has been waging a hybrid war on Western allies of Ukraine, following Moscow\u2019s full-scale invasion of its neighbor. In the UK, Russian-backed operatives<\/a> have set fire to Ukrainian-linked factories, police said.\n <\/p>\n \n Elsewhere in Europe, drones spotted near airports have halted flights<\/a>, NATO airspace has been violated in Poland <\/a>and Romania<\/a>, and underwater cables<\/a> have been disrupted in the Baltic Sea, sparking fears of sabotage. Russia has not claimed responsibility for any involvement in these incidents.\n <\/p>\n \n Metreweli is also set to emphasize the importance of mastering technology, whether that be in labs, in the field, or in MI6\u2019s tradecraft. The chief previously led the service\u2019s technology and innovation teams, a position made famous as \u201cQ\u201d in the James Bond movies.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe must be as comfortable with lines of code as we are with human sources, as fluent in (computer programming language) Python as we are in multiple languages,\u201d she is expected to say.\n <\/p>\n \n The spy chief will conclude her speech by underlining the power of human agency in tackling threats to UK security.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe defining challenge of the 21st century is not simply who wields the most powerful technologies, but who guides them with the greatest wisdom. Our security, our prosperity and our humanity depend on it,\u201d Metreweli will say.\n <\/p>\n \n In a more dangerous, tech-mediated world, the chief will call for the \u201crediscovery of our shared humanity,\u201d to determine how the future unfolds.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt is not what we can do that defines us, but what we choose to do. That choice \u2013 the exercise of human agency \u2013 has shaped our world before, and it will shape it again,\u201d she is expected to say.\n <\/p>\n \n The MI6 chief\u2019s address comes just a week after a speech by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, in which she highlighted the threat of information warfare. The government had sanctioned numerous organizations and individuals responsible for \u201cdelivering Russia\u2019s information warfare,\u201d Cooper said, as well as two China-based companies for their \u201cvast and indiscriminate cyber activities against the UK and its allies.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Earlier this year, MI6 launched an online portal aimed at using the dark web to entice potential spies to send secrets, particularly targeting Russia<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n The portal, called Silent Courier,<\/a> allows anonymous access to a secure MI6 messaging platform where users can send information to UK intelligence services from anywhere in the world. The launch came after the former spy chief Richard Moore used a rare public speech<\/a> in Prague in July 2023 to appeal to Russian citizens to spy for the UK.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new head of Britain\u2019s foreign intelligence service MI6 will warn the nation that the \u201cfront line is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-633290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}