Ex-MI5 chief says those who think UK already at war with Russia ‘may be right’

The former head of MI5 has said those who think the UK is already at war with Russia “may be right”.

In June, UK defence advisor Dr Fiona Hill said that because of “the poisonings, assassinations, sabotage operations, all kinds of cyber attacks and influence operations,” it was fair to conclude “Russia is at war with us”.

Appearing on the House of Lords’ official podcast, Baroness Manningham-Buller said: “Dr Hill probably knows more about Putin than anybody else.”

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She added: “Since the invasion of Ukraine, and the various things I read that the Russians have been doing here, sabotage, intelligence collection, attacking people, and so on… Fiona Hill may be right in saying we’re already at war with Russia.

“It’s a different sort of war, but the hostility, the cyber attacks, the physical attacks, intelligence work, is extensive.”

‘We were wrong’ about Russia in 2005

Baroness Manningham-Buller served in MI5 for 34 years, becoming director general in 2002 before retiring in 2007.

Speaking to the Lord Speaker’s Corner podcast, she recalled meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin after the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland.

“We all hoped that the past history of Russia wouldn’t prevail, and, at the end of the Soviet Union, we would have a potential partner,” she said, “and that was one of the reasons why Putin was with us for the G8 in 2005.”

The former head of MI5 added: “I met him when he came back to London. But actually, we were wrong in that, because Russia is extremely hostile to the West, and we’ve seen it in all sorts of ways.

“I didn’t anticipate that within a year, he’d be ordering the murder on London streets of [Russian dissident Alexander] Litvinenko.”

Mr Litvinenko, a former FSB agent, died in 2006, almost three weeks after drinking tea poisoned with radioactive polonium-210, a rare and very potent radioactive isotope.

Before fleeing Russia and being given British nationality, Mr Litvinenko had accused Mr Putin of corruption. It is understood that he ingested the tea during a meeting with two Russian spies at a London hotel.

Aid cuts ‘leave space’ for China

The former intelligence chief also spoke about the West’s soft power, recalling “the HIV work funded by the Americans in Africa” and noting that cutting foreign aid “means that we leave space for your friendly Chinese diplomat”.

She added: “If we withdraw from the world, they can move in because they have a strong economic base, so I think soft power… whether it’s the BBC World Service, whether it’s aid, whether it’s de-mining, all contribute importantly to our influence in the world, as well as being of humanitarian importance.”

War decorated pigeon and reading upside down

In a more light-hearted note, Baroness Manningham-Buller shared that she can read upside down – saying “it’s a professional talent!” – and that her mother bred carrier pigeons for intelligence during the Second World War.

Sharing the story of Mary Manningham-Buller, later Viscountess Dilhorne, the baroness said: “The pigeons were dropped in wicker baskets or little slings with parachutes to occupied France and (they) brought back messages strapped to their ankles, and she would then ring the War Office and somebody would come and collect the message.

“It was a story in our family, which I always thought must be apocryphal, that one of her pigeons had brought back information on the V-2 (rocket) site at Peenemunde, which was then bombed by the RAF.

“But I subsequently discovered that there was a record of this, and it was true, and her pigeon got the Dickin Medal for that.

“I rather like that only the British give medals to animals.”