UK spy chief says West between peace and war and 500,000 Russians killed in Ukraine war so far
Russia has been ramping up cyber attacks on the UK and its allies. (Reuters: Ramil Sitdikov)
In short:
The head of UK intelligence agency GCHQ is warning that Moscow and other adversaries could use artificial intelligence and other emerging technology to conduct "hybrid warfare" against Western allies.
The warning comes as the UK and Poland agree to deepen their military and cyber cooperation.
The GCHQ chief also says British intelligence estimates that 500,000 Russians have been killed in the Ukraine war so far.
Artificial intelligence is "an unstoppable force" that is being weaponised in ways that fall just short of traditional warfare, according to a British spy chief, who has also revealed that nearly 500,000 Russians have so far died fighting in Ukraine.
The warning, issued by the director of intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Anne Keast-Butler, was made on the same day British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer signed a defence pact with Poland.
The deal will allow the two countries to combine their armed forces' expertise and industrial capability, including developing and manufacturing of "next-generation complex weapons", to head off the threat of "Russian aggression".
Ms Keast-Butler said Britain and its allies were in "a space between peace and war" and risked losing a conflict in cyberspace against Russia and other adversaries unless they treated cybersecurity threats with much greater urgency.
"I've spent three decades working in national security. And the risk of miscalculation is as high as I've ever seen it," she said in a speech at a World War II code-breaking centre near London.
Vladimir Putin is a former KGB agent. (Reuters: Sputnik/Sergey Guneev)
"Tech companies are releasing AI-driven innovations at a remarkable pace, with untold consequences, as algorithms are weaponised often just below the threshold of traditional warfare.
"AI is an unstoppable force with great opportunity … but it is also a force with risks."
Ms Keast-Butler singled out Russia as a threat, accusing Moscow of "relentlessly targeting critical infrastructure, democratic processes, supply chains and public trust" in Britain and Europe, as well as stealing technology and plotting sabotage and assassination attempts.
"Russia is scaling up its daily hybrid activity against the UK and Europe, stretching from the seabed to cyberspace," she told an audience of computing experts, diplomats, journalists and senior officials.
"One area in sharp focus for us is protecting the data and energy flowing through the critical cables and pipelines in and around British waters," she added.
"We do this by exposing Russia's intent, motive and underwater capabilities."
While reiterating Britain's steadfast support for Ukraine, she also said that new intelligence had shown almost half a million Russian soldiers had been killed in Ukraine since the conflict began in 2022.
Neither side publishes casualty figures and both accuse each other of exaggerating their enemy's losses, while assessments by Western intelligence officials and analysts agree that hundreds of thousands of men have been killed and wounded on each side.
GCHQ is the UK's electronic and cyberintelligence agency. It works alongside the domestic security service MI5 and the foreign intelligence agency, MI6.
The speech is the latest in a string of warnings from Western spies and intelligence experts that Russia is stepping up hostile activity in a "grey zone" that falls just below the threshold of war.
Poland–UK pact to 'challenge' Moscow
Ms Keast-Butler's speech was handed down as Sir Keir met with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in London to sign a defensive pact, the latest in a series that the UK has struck with European allies in recent years.
It paved the way for large-scale joint exercises by land forces and for London and Warsaw to boost the use of uncrewed systems to reinforce NATO's eastern flank, it said.
NATO allies accuse Russia of using a shadow fleet of vessels to sabotage undersea cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea. (Reuters: Annegret Hilse)
The agreement's security elements will also bolster information sharing and other cooperation to tackle organised crime and aid joint work on cyber, migration and health security.
Poland, an EU and NATO member that shares its eastern border with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, also recently inked a deal in Paris to ramp up joint defence ties.
"There's no greater challenge for either of our countries than the challenge of Russian aggression," Sir Keir, flanking Mr Tusk, said after signing the treaty at a World War II-era bunker on a former military base in north-west London.
"And we see that not just in Ukraine itself, but beyond Ukraine, impacting on our own countries," he said.
The UK prime minister called the treaty "a generational uplift" in the allies' security and defence relationship.
Mr Tusk thanked Sir Keir for his commitment to defending "shared values" like the rule of law, democracy and human rights, saying they were "important for us and for our nations".
"That is the foundation of the treaty," he noted, speaking through an interpreter.
AP/Reuters