Evgenia Sokolenko09:35, 02.06.24

One of the aggravating factors was the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Britain’s national counterintelligence service, MI5, has been ordered to “refocus” its efforts on fighting spies from Iran, China and Russia.

As The Telegraph writes , citing sources in the British government, MI5 usually has priority in the fight against terrorists, but must now attract more resources to counterintelligence operations against these countries.

The reason for the change in focus was the Russian-Ukrainian war, the rise of Chinese agents in Britain and Iran’s use of organized crime.

According to a senior government source, ministers have asked MI5 to “refocus a significant portion of its efforts on combating espionage, particularly the state threat from China, Russia and, more recently, Iran.”

It is noted that Britain’s support for Ukraine in the war against the Russian Federation influenced the increase in espionage activity. In particular, the number of Chinese agents involved in intelligence gathering in the UK is now “unquantifiable”.

One source believes up to 20 Chinese embassy staff in the UK are likely to be working as spies.

“But the number of agents, civilians recruited by Chinese intelligence services, could be in the hundreds of thousands,” the source added.

Espionage in Europe

In February, The Economist . noted that thanks to the change of the head of the “special influence committees,” the Russian Federation was able to rehabilitate its intelligence on the world stage.

In March, the Financial Times reported that Russia had aggressively renewed its spy war with the West, and Moscow’s publication of a phone conversation in which senior German air force officers discussed sending cruise missiles to Ukraine is just the latest case in point.

In May, Ukrainian military analyst Alexander Kovalenko said that the West “slept through” the formation of an extensive network of Russian spies , agents of influence and entire teams of trained militants.

(C)UNIAN 2024