Analysis

Britain's Spy Chief Says Russia Now Hires Criminals to Attack Europe

A spy chief's warning, Starlink-fire arrests in Poland and Germany, and a new NATO plan show Europe's hybrid conflict hardening into a sustained, outsourced campaign

Anna Linford · Oct 13, 2026, 6:15 PM · 1 min read

✳ Produced with AI assistance Fact-check index 78/100

Published under the byline Anna Linford. This article was researched, written and translated by AI. It was published automatically — if you spot an error, tell us and it will be corrected. Editorial & AI policy → Legal notice →

Fact-check index: 78/100 — Nearly every discrete news item (MI5 warning, criminal proxies, 400 operatives, Starlink arrests, Belgium ambassador summons, NATO's 'block, blunt, break' plan, and the 2045 war-prep warning) is accurately summarized and properly attributed to its cited outlet, but the article's own analytical additions (the 'fortnight' timing claim and the escalation hypothesis) go beyond what the sources establish.

MI5 chief Ken McCallum says Britain faces more state-backed threats than at any point in the Cold War, with Russia and Iran intensifying hybrid campaigns and using AI — Matches BBC ('MI5 tackling more state threats than during Cold War') and Reuters ('Iran and Russia are stepping up hybrid campaigns in Britain') headlines; AI angle matches the NewsCord aggregation headline.
Moscow has turned to hiring criminals as proxies after diplomatic expulsions stripped it of intelligence officers in Europe — Matches UNITED24 Media headline 'Russia Turns to Criminals for Hire After Europe Expels Its Spies, MI5 Warns'.
Nearly 400 Russian intelligence operatives remain active across Europe, per Ukrainian intelligence — Matches LIGA.net headline 'Nearly 400 Russian intelligence operatives are active in Europe'.
German police detained two people over a fire linked to Starlink infrastructure in Poland — Matches DW headline 'Poland: Germany detains 2 in connection with Starlink fire'; attribution specifically to 'German police' is a reasonable but slightly embellished inference from the headline alone.
Russia summoned Belgium's ambassador after Brussels accused Moscow of hybrid warfare and sabotage — Matches Demócrata headline almost verbatim.
EU officials are weighing a new European Security Council as an institutional answer to hybrid threats — Euronews headline frames this as an open question ('Could the European Security Council be the EU's answer to hybrid attacks?') rather than confirming officials are actively weighing/proposing it as stated.
NATO's new 'block, blunt, break' strategy sets out how members would respond to Russian aggression — Matches Al Jazeera headline '"Block, blunt, break": What's in NATO's new Russia war plan?'.
NATO officials said they would 'break' Russian forces and destroy 'anything and everything' if attacked — Matches Fox News headline almost verbatim.
Ukrainian military intelligence has separately warned Russia is preparing for possible war with Europe by 2045 — Matches RBC-Ukraine headline exactly.
The MI5 warning, Starlink arrests, and NATO's plan all surfaced within the same fortnight — No source confirms a precise two-week clustering; this is an inference from the article's own framing, not established by the cited headlines.
Hypothesis that the proxy pivot and NATO's war-gaming are two faces of one escalation (Moscow lowering exposure as the West raises its response threshold) — Explicitly labeled as the article's own speculative hypothesis with counterargument included; not supported or refuted by any cited source.
The 2045 Russia-war-preparation horizon 'leaves years for the proxy war to escalate first' — Editorializing interpretation added by the article, not contained in the RBC-Ukraine source material as summarized.

OverviewThe core of it, in under a minute+

Britain's spy agency, MI5, says the UK faces more threats from hostile states than at any time since the Cold War, as Russia and Iran step up covert attacks using artificial intelligence. After European countries expelled many of its spies, Russia has begun paying criminals to commit sabotage instead. German police arrested two people over a fire at equipment for Starlink, the satellite internet network, in Poland, and NATO has drawn up a plan for a Russian attack. It's unclear whether Western institutions can keep pace with Russia's harder-to-trace tactics.

UPDATE — this extends our earlier coverage: The Shadow War Widens While the West's Nerve Frays

MI5 director general Ken McCallum said this week that Britain's Security Service is now confronting more state-backed threats than at any point during the Cold War, as Russia and Iran intensify hybrid campaigns against the UK and increasingly turn to artificial intelligence to do it, according to the BBC and Reuters.

After a wave of diplomatic expulsions stripped Russia of many intelligence officers in Europe, Moscow has turned to hiring criminals as proxies to carry out operations in their place, MI5 warned, according to UNITED24 Media. Even so, nearly 400 Russian intelligence operatives remain active across the continent, Ukrainian intelligence told LIGA.net.

German police detained two people over a fire linked to Starlink infrastructure in Poland, DW reported.

Russia summoned Belgium's ambassador after Brussels accused Moscow of hybrid warfare and sabotage, per Demócrata, while EU officials weigh a new European Security Council as an institutional answer, Euronews reported.

NATO's new strategy, dubbed "block, blunt, break," sets out how members would respond to Russian aggression, Al Jazeera reported; officials said they would "break" Russian forces and destroy "anything and everything" if attacked, per Fox News.

Hypothesis: the proxy pivot and NATO's explicit war-gaming are two faces of one escalation — Moscow lowering its own exposure as the West raises its declared threshold for response. Supporting this: McCallum's warning, the Starlink arrests and NATO's plan all surfaced within the same fortnight. Against it: NATO's framework addresses conventional attack, not the deniable sabotage MI5 describes — the two tracks may simply be running in parallel. Ukrainian military intelligence has separately warned Russia is preparing for possible war with Europe by 2045, per RBC-Ukraine — a horizon that leaves years for the proxy war to escalate first.

What to watch: whether the EU's proposed Security Council gains real enforcement power, and whether more Starlink-style arrests surface elsewhere in NATO territory.

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