Blaise Metreweli, the new head of MI6 since 1 October 2025 and the first woman to lead Britain's overseas intelligence agency, outlined the complex security challenges posed by Russia in a speech on 15 December 2025. She characterized the current environment as operating between peace and war, focusing on Russia's grey-zone tactics such as drone incursions over airports and airbases, cyber-attacks on infrastructure, and aggressive information warfare. She condemned Russia's revisionist and expansionist policies, particularly in context of the ongoing war in Ukraine, and reaffirmed the UK's commitment to maintaining pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Metreweli emphasized the critical importance of technology mastery within the agency, calling for intelligence officers to be fluent in coding languages like Python to maintain operational effectiveness in an era dominated by data and biometric security. The speech highlighted the need for intelligence innovation to meet the challenges of a diffuse, technologically shifting power landscape.

Blaise Metreweli, the new head of MI6 since 1 October 2025 and the first woman to lead Britain's overseas intelligence agency, outlined the complex security challenges posed by Russia in a speech on 15 December 2025. She characterized the current environment as operating between peace and war, focusing on Russia's grey-zone tactics such as drone incursions over airports and airbases, cyber-attacks on infrastructure, and aggressive information warfare. She condemned Russia's revisionist and expansionist policies, particularly in context of the ongoing war in Ukraine, and reaffirmed the UK's commitment to maintaining pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Metreweli emphasized the critical importance of technology mastery within the agency, calling for intelligence officers to be fluent in coding languages like Python to maintain operational effectiveness in an era dominated by data and biometric security. The speech highlighted the need for intelligence innovation to meet the challenges of a diffuse, technologically shifting power landscape.