The world is ‘more dangerous than it has been for four decades’: MI6 chief warns West faces a ‘reckoning’ with a new generation of terrorists, Putin rampaging in Europe and Iran going nuclear

The chief of MI6 has said that the world is more dangerous than it has been in the last forty years amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and the West’s mounting tensions with Russia. 

Speaking at the British embassy in Paris, Sir Richard Moore also warned that Britain and its allies are facing a ‘reckoning’ as a new generation of potential terrorists are radicalised over the war currently erupting in the Middle East.

Sir Moore added that the threats Europe faces ‘could hardly be more serious’, warning if the Russian President is able to reduce Ukraine to a puppet state, he ‘will not stop there’.

The MI6 chief said British, French, European and transatlantic security will be jeopardised with the cost of not supporting the war-torn country ‘infinitely higher’ than supporting it.

‘Some nations fear if Putin wins in Ukraine he could push into countries in NATO‘s eastern flank next, such as the Baltic states’.

Moore spoke alongside Nicholas Lerner, head of France‘s external intelligence agency, the DGSE, where the pair gave their first lecture at the event marking 120 years of the Entente Cordiale – a pact between Britain and France that merged the rivals together as military and diplomatic allies.

The former ambassador who became chief in October 2020, said: ‘In 37 years in the intelligence profession I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. 

‘And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious’.   

Moore added that the threats Europe faces ‘could hardly be more serious’, warning if the Russian President is able to reduce Ukraine to a puppet state. Pictured: A serviceman of 24th Mechanised brigade named after King Danylo of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fires a 2s5 ‘Hyacinth-s’ self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops at a front line

This handout photograph taken and released by the National Police of Ukraine on November 29, 2024 shows burning house following a drone attack at an undisclosed location in Odesa region

Western security officials suspect that Russian intelligence is attempting to destabilise Ukraine’s allies through disinformation, sabotage and arson.

Moscow has been linked by Western officials to several planned attacks in Europe, including an alleged plot to burn down Ukrainian-owned businesses in London, and shipping incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes. 

In July one caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another ignited in a warehouse in England.

Lerner agreed that ‘the collective security of the whole of Europe is at stake’ in Ukraine. 

Britain and France have been among Ukrainian allies who have given permission to Kyiv to use weapons they supply – including Scalp in France and Storm Shadow in Britain – to destroy targets deep inside Russia. 

The Biden administration recently eased its opposition to US.-made missiles being used to strike Russia, with Ukraine last week  saying it had used the American ATACM missiles to target Russia for the first time in the war.

Since then, Russia has blasted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with a barrage of missiles and drones, in what the president claimed was in retaliation to the firing of American missiles.

Russia then fired a new medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile – dubbed Oreshnik – and Putin quickly threatened to use it against ‘decision-making centres’ in Kyiv.

US Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) is seen in action

The picture captures the moment Russia used the Oreshnik for the first time to strike Dnipro, Ukraine, on 21 November 2024

Russian T90M tank firing towards Ukrainian positions, at an undisclosed location in Russia

In Russia, Putin’s troops are continuing to gain ground in the eastern Donbas region and there are growing concerns that Ukrainian troops are set to face their harshest winter in three years thanks to the attacks on the country’s energy infastructure. 

Moore said that Ukraine has ‘the will to win’ but that Britain and the West acknowledged they needed to ‘do more to help’. 

‘We have a war on European soil… Nicolas and I are in no doubt about the stakes in Ukraine: if Putin is allowed to succeed in reducing Ukraine to a vassal state he will not stop there,’ he added. 

Regarding the conflict erupting in Gaza, Moore warned: ‘We have yet to have a full reckoning with the radicalising impact of the fighting, the terrible loss of innocent life in the Middle East and the horrors of October 7’.

Moore said that the ‘menace of terrorism has not gone away’ and after pulling out of Syria and Iraq, ISIS was again widening its reach, launching fatal attacks in both Iran and Russia.

The former head of MI6, Sir John Sawyers, who was also attending the speech in Paris, has previously warned that if Islamic terror attacks on British soil return it could have been prompted by the killings of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.

He warned that the police force in Britain, as well as its spy agencies, should be ‘on their toes’ after changes of leadership in the Middle East. 

There are growing concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Pictured: Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah

 Smoke billows above Beirut’s southern suburbs following an Israeli airstrike on November 26

Civil defence teams and civilians try to rescue those trapped under the rubble following an Israeli army’s attack on Et-Tabiin School, where displaced people took shelter in Ed-Deraj neighborhood in Gaza City, Gaza on November 27, 2024

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs on November 26

There are also fears about Iran’s nuclear ambitions as the country holds talks in Geneva with Britain, France, Germany, and the EU in an attempt to find a way out of an impasse over its nuclear programme before Donald Trump takes up US presidency in January next year.

Trump, who pursued a policy of ‘maximum economic pressure’ against Iran during his first term, returns to the White House on January 20.

A day prior to the talks, Kazem Gharibabadi, an Iranian minister, stirred tensions by saying the EU ‘should abandon its self-centred and irresponsible behaviour’ on a range of issues including the war in Ukraine and the Iranian nuclear issue.

Many Europeans fear that Iran’s growing stockpile of highly enriched uranium reveals it is covertly attempting to build a nuclear bomb.

Iran believes Europe  rebuffed a clear sign of willingness to negotiate when Tehran offered to cap its uranium enrichment programme at 60 per cent and to allow experienced IAEA nuclear inspectors back into Iran.

Moore said the risk of an Iranian nuclear proliferation was expected to be the most ‘critical threat’ in coming months and that the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions ‘continue to threaten all of us’ despite the series of blows dealt in recent months to Tehran’s allied militias across the Middle East.