Russian officials just piped up over MI5′s recent warning Moscow agents are looking to cause “mayhem” on British streets and wrote the claims off as “scare tactics”. On Tuesday, MI5′s director-general Ken McCallum claimed Vladimir Putin’s “henchmen” were looking to strike away from the battlefield “in the misguided hope of weakening Western resolve”.

The head of Britain’s domestic security service said Russia’s military intelligence service was pursuing “dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness.”

Russian military intelligence is seeking to cause "mayhem" across Britain and Europe, the UK's domestic spy chief said on Tuesday, while a growing threat from al Qaeda and Islamic State was his greatest terrorism concern.

The head of Britain's domestic spy agency accused Russian military intelligence of being on a "sustained mission to generate mayhem."

Ken McCallum said the number of state-threat investigations undertaken by MI5 has risen by 48 percent in the past year.

MI5 had also responded to 20 plots backed by Iran since 2022, he said, although he added the majority of its work still mostly involved Islamist extremism followed by extreme right-wing terrorism. The complex mix of terror-related threats and threats from nation states meant MI5 had "one hell of a job on its hands",

Russian spies are “on a sustained mission to generate mayhem in British streets”, the head of MI5 has said. Ken McCallum said that as the war in Ukraine continues, the security services were seeing “Putin’s henchmen seeking to strike elsewhere in the misguided hope of weakening Western resolve”.

MI5 warns that Russia's intelligence agency is attempting to incite chaos in the U.K., particularly following the U.K.'s support for Ukraine.