MI5 Chief: Russia Top Threat as Adversary Activity Quadruples — SkimNews
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- Sir Ken McCallum said MI5 is devoting more resources to countering state threats than during the Cold War, with foreign adversary threats quadrupling over the past decade and Russia ranked "aggressor number one."
- MI5 has expelled nearly 1,000 Russian spies since the Ukraine invasion, forcing the Kremlin to "scramble to pay criminals" for attacks, McCallum said, adding these are "not the actions of a great power with the strategic upper hand."
- MI5 recorded 50 arrests in the last year over Iran-linked activities targeting Jewish communities and military sites; McCallum told reporters the suspected plot at RAF Fairford — where seven people were arrested — was "not unique" and that Iranian interest extends beyond that base.
- MI5 has caught terrorists exploiting AI through improved reconnaissance and AI-enabled drones, and McCallum warned the technology's biggest risk is extremist groups using it to harness new and existing bioweapons.
- MI5 launched a new AI Threat Assessment Centre to "separate the bluster from the realities," with McCallum announcing that counter-terrorism and counter-state-threats work are now "pretty much of equal scale" — a "huge shift."
- McCallum flagged rising extreme right-wing terrorism, including a recent investigation into a "radicalised extreme right-wing 13-year-old here in the UK" whose case helped an international partner prevent a lethal attack on their soil.
Why it matters: MI5 is spending more time on state threats than during the Cold War, with counter-terrorism and counter-espionage at equal scale for the first time. The 50 Iran-linked arrests and nearly 1,000 Russian spy expulsions since 2022 show the operational load, and the new AI Threat Assessment Centre formalises MI5's response to AI-amplified attack methods, including AI-enabled drones and bioweapons risks.
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