Baroness Manningham-Buller cited cyberattacks, espionage and covert operations on British soil as evidence
29 September 2025
A former head of MI5 has said Britain may already be at war with Russia.
Baroness Manningham-Buller, who led the Security Service between 2002 and 2007, cited cyberattacks, espionage and covert operations on British soil as evidence for her claim.
Lady Manningham-Buller said she was inclined to agree with Fiona Hill, a foreign policy specialist and former adviser to Donald Trump, who has said previously that Britain is already at war with Russia.
She told the Lord Speaker’s Corner podcast: “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 cyberattacks, the physical attacks, intelligence work is extensive.”
Lady Manningham-Buller said Vladimir Putin had moved to a position of sustained hostility to the West since the invasion of Ukraine three years ago and was engaging in sabotage and intelligence collection, as well as attacking people in Britain.
She also suggested previous governments were wrong to believe Russia could join the club of Western democracies.
Speaking of her meeting with Mr Putin in 2005, Lady Manningham-Buller said: “We all hoped that at the end of the Soviet Union we would have a potential partner. That was one of the reasons why Putin was with us for the G8 summit in 2005.
“I met him when he came back to London. But actually we were wrong because Russia is extremely hostile to the West. I didn’t anticipate that within a year he’d be ordering the murder on London streets of Alexander Litvinenko.”
Mr Litvinenko, a former agent of Russia’s spy agency the FSB, was poisoned in London in 2006.
In 1998, he said he had been ordered to kill Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky, which led to him being persecuted by the Russian authorities and fleeing to Britain in 2000.
An inquiry found he was murdered by Russian agents, probably with Putin’s approval.
Comment from :
I Hide
Is now the time nato should be considering a first and overwhelming strike against Russia? Simply obliterating it’s oil and gas supplies would instantly cripple Russia. It is well within American capabilities to overwhelm the already stretched Russian army and knock it out of the war within days.
Oliver Lacon
Reply to I Hide
And get us all killed?
Brave words said from an armchair.
I Hide
Reply to Oliver Lacon
I think the threat of nuclear war is all Russia has left. From my armchair I would advocate that supplying Ukraine with long range weapons to target Russian infrastructure more effectively would be a wonderful first step in collapsing the paper tiger.
JOHN BREINING-RICHES
It is good that such a person so deeply involved in the work should give a warning clear and loud.
Russia obviously does have the intent to rebuild as a major state after the collapse of communism and cyber warfare is a cheap way of harming economic bases.
Michael Poland
Baroness Manningham-Buller is 💯 % correct. Step up, Britain.
Nicholas mills
That ship in hull that nearly collided with a tanker carrying jet fuel, was captained by a Russian.
They attempted a hybrid attack in the uk. It was denied but the Russian captained ship was carrying sodium cyanide canisters.
Of course nothing to see. They instead blame hacking on young English and American hacking group.
We had the Heathrow attack etc.
Not conclusive but suspicious.
Rakesh Aggarwal
3 June 2024 :
NHS (Synnovis pathology services)
Russian ransomware group Qilin stole ≈ 400 GB of patient data; patient names, NHS numbers, blood test results (HIV, cancer, etc.).
Cancelled thousands of appointments/operations; public health trust shaken; one of the largest health-data breaches in UK history.
June 2024
London hospitals (King’s College, Guy’s & St Thomas’, etc.)
The same Synnovis / NHS attack ‒ “critical incident” declared, blood transfusions/tests interrupted.
Disruption of essential medical services; risk to lives; exposed vulnerabilities in private/NHS contractor lithe airport.
David Holloway
I’ve been reluctant to get into a hot war with Russia, but I think we’re past the point now. The West needs to strike Russian targets heavily and give Putin a taste of his own medicine. He’s the richest person in the world and enjoys his lavish lifestyle, so nukes are off the table in my opinion.
Matthew Lennard
IS at war. There is no maybe. We are at war.
Marge Simpson
Communism is still attacking the West!
Despite the collapse of the Soviet empire, relics like Putin still try to terrorize all around them. Time to end communism’s last stand.
Linda Marshall
The whole point of intelligence agents, is that of gathering intelligence. But for it to be a surprise that Putin hates the west and will do anything he can to bring it down, isn’t earth shattering. The fact that Baroness Manningham-Buller was surprised that he ordered the assassination of Litvenenko, says a lot about her intelligence. And the fact that nobody has done a blessed thing about the Russian sub in the Thames. It begs the question as to whom do MI5 and MI6 think they are working for? And maybe the problem lies with our spy masters, that they don’t actually know.
GRAHAM REEVE
Well no sheet, Sherlock. That’s been pretty clear to most of us since the Salisbury poisoning.
Roy Batty
The Russians know they’ve been at war with the west for years.
They know the west is “nice” and accommodating so they calibrate what they do carefully.
Some of the western intelligence agencies have been fighting back, and maybe initiating for years too.
Interesting that many seem not to realise.
Ron Thompson
“Russia is extremely hostile to the West.”
Putin’s an ex-KGB thug who believes in recreating the Soviet Union.
He’s also made no secret of wanting to bring down Western power.
Anybody who thinks handing him a couple of Ukrainian oblasts will buy peace, is making a huge and dangerous miscalculation.
Kremtrolls have been very active. Here is one filthy bastard :
ted welstead
Today, several Hungarian media outlets reported on Zelensky’s plans to organize sabotage operations in Romania and Poland in order to blame Russia. On Bankova Street, they are preparing their own “Gleiwitz incident” — with the aim of creating a casus belli for war between Russia and NATO.For the implementation of this provocation, on September 16th, Russian “Geran” UAVs were already delivered to the Yavoriv training ground in Western Ukraine, where the International Peacekeeping and Security Center of the Hetman Petro Sahaidachny National Academy is located. These drones had previously been repaired in Lviv at the “LORTA” plant.
The following is a CLEAR ACT OF WAR. It has been downplayed by the UK media for some reason :
Powerful explosion rocks British city where drone factory was to be opened:
https://ukranews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/ukranews.com/en/amp/news/1107572-powerful-explosion-rocks-british-city-where-drone-factory-was-to-be-opened?amp_js_v=0.1&_gsa=1#webview=1&cap=swipe
The West has been snoozing for much too long, as we’ve criticized all along. The responses to continued and increasing mafia aggression is still too weak, too slow, and too little.