UK spy agency has warned that Russia is looking to cause “sustained mayhem on British and European streets”. The head of MI5 said Russian intelligence agency GRU had carried out “arson, sabotage and more dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness” in UK following the invasion of Ukraine and subsequent support offered by London. MI5 chief Ken McCallum was giving an annual update on security threats faced by UK.

McCallum added the MI5 had also tackled at least 20 plots of sabotage backed by Iran since 2022. He stressed that MI5 had “one hell of a job on its hands” given a mix of threats from state-backed actors and Islamist extremism.

“The first 20 years of my career here were crammed full of terrorist threats,” the MI5 chief said.

“We now face those alongside state-backed assassination and sabotage plots, against the backdrop of a major European land war,” he said.

He also said that further acts of aggression from hostile nations, especially the regime of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, were very well expected given the UK’s “leading role” in supporting Ukraine.

McCallum said European nations have booted out more than 700 Russian diplomats, majority of whom ‘were spies.’

It is for the first time that the MI5 chief has accused Moscow in such stark terms.

Speaking of threats from Iran, McCallum claimed Iran ramped up “plots here in UK, at an unprecedented pace and scale” after the 2022 killing of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old who died in Iranian police custody after being arrested for allegedly violating rules requiring women to wear the headscarf.

He vowed that MI5 would give its “fullest attention to the risk of an increase in – or a broadening of – Iranian state aggression in the UK”.

McCallum also touched upon threats from China, saying the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had a programme to steal data and information, and “we have seen 20,000 obfuscated approaches to individuals by China”.

(With inputs from agencies)