Vladimir Putin now ‘on a mission to cause mayhem on UK streets,’ warns head of MI5

Vladimir Putin’s spies are on a “sustained mission to generate mayhem on British streets”, the head of MI5 has warned.

Ken McCallum admitted the UK looms “large in the fevered imagination of Putin’s regime” after supporting in the war with .

He said ’s GRU intelligence agency, which was responsible for the novichok poisonings in Salisbury in 2018, is behind the “sustained mission”, adding that Putin’s “henchmen” are ramping up arson and sabotage operations across Europe “in the misguided hope of weakening Western resolve”.

Britain’s top intelligence officer said Russian spies are hiring criminals to carry out their “dirty work” and acting with “increasing recklessness”.

He said: “In just the last year, the number of state threat investigations we’re running has shot up by 48%.

“The more eye-catching shift this year has been Russian state actors turning to proxies for their dirty work, including private intelligence operatives and criminals from both the UK and third countries.

“While altering MI5’s detection challenge, ’s use of proxies further reduces the professionalism of their operations, and – absent diplomatic immunity – increases our disruptive options.

“The UK’s leading role in supporting means we loom large in the fevered imagination of Putin’s regime, and we should expect to see continued acts of aggression here at home.

“The GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets: we’ve seen arson, sabotage and more.

“Dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness. And having precisely the opposite effect to what the state intends, in driving increased operational coordination with partners across Europe and beyond.”

Mr McCallum said the last Russian military intelligence officer has been kicked out of Britian.

Delivering a stark warning to anyone considering working for , Mr McCallum said: “If you take money from Iran, or any other state to carry out illegal acts in the UK, you will bring the full weight of the national security apparatus down on you. It’s a choice you’ll regret.” The Daily Express last month reported how Moscow is believed to have “expanded its recruitment of agents-saboteurs online to go beyond the usual suspects”.

It is using a “gig-economy” style of recruiting people on short contracts, with the option to “surge” to meet “the rapidly increasing demand for sabotage operations”.

At least 24 alleged saboteurs have been arrested so far this year after being recruited by Russian spy chiefs, according to academics published in the Royal United Services Institute’s Journal.

A wave of fires at arms factories and military-related industrial sites in the West that are supplying has alarmed intelligence chiefs. Suspected plots have been detected in London, Germany, Czech Republic and Sweden.

’s GRU intelligence agency has shifted its tactics after the expulsion of diplomats in the wake of the Salisbury nerve agent poisoning.

Sources have said Russian spies do not stay “operational for long” and their plots are easier to disrupt.

They are no longer able to freely use Moscow’s embassy in Kensington as a base, protected by diplomatic immunity.

Whilst operating in the consulate, spies would have had access to secure communication networks and other sensitive intelligence that could help shape their investigations.

Instead, they have been forced to shift to tactics favoured more by Chinese intelligence officers.

They are now increasingly travelling to Britain under fake identities and are more reliant on intermediaries known as “cutouts”.

These middlemen usually only know the source and the agent they are passing the information to.

Traditionally, the Kremlin favoured allowing their network of spies to operate from the embassy and personally meet their potential sources.

But the crackdowns – in the wake of the Salisbury nerve agent attack in 2018 and the war – have intensified efforts to catch Russian intelligence officers.