Overview

• Eliza Manningham-Buller endorsed Fiona Hill’s assessment on the House of Lords podcast that Moscow’s actions amount to a different kind of war against the UK.
• She cited extensive hostility since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, highlighting cyber-attacks, physical attacks, intelligence work and sabotage in Britain.
• Recent UK cases include the jailing of six Bulgarians over a spy ring and convictions for an arson attack on a London warehouse supplying Ukraine.
• The Met’s counter-terrorism chief, Dominic Murphy, reported a five-fold rise in state-backed threats since the 2018 Skripal poisoning and warned of youths being recruited online.
• A public inquiry found Alexander Litvinenko was murdered by Russian agents, and Manningham-Buller cautioned that cuts to aid and soft power risk ceding influence to China.