Russia Relentlessly Targets Critical Infrastructure and Democracy, Says GCHQ

GCHQ is working “tirelessly” to counter cyber attacks and what its chief describes as “reckless sabotage and assassination attempts,” according to remarks by director Anne Keast-Butler. She says the agency is working with intelligence and defence partners to reduce the Russian threat amid what she portrays as escalating aggression and chaos. The speech comes against the backdrop of years of tensions between the UK and Moscow, including accusations that the Kremlin was behind the 2006 poisoning of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London and the 2018 Novichok attack on former Russian military officer Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. Russia denies responsibility for both incidents.

Keast-Butler is also expected to link Russia’s actions to the wider security picture since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She is set to say that, while the UK remains committed to supporting Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin is “going backwards on the battlefield.” The remarks reflect concerns in Britain and among its allies that Russia is conducting a broader “hybrid war” involving cyber operations, sabotage, and covert activity aimed at Western countries. A BBC Verify analysis has also suggested that hundreds of Russian “shadow fleet” vessels have entered UK waters since the prime minister threatened to intercept them earlier this year.

The GCHQ chief will also highlight China as a major strategic challenge. She is expected to describe China as a science and technology superpower with advanced capabilities across its intelligence, cyber, and military agencies. In her view, rapid progress in artificial intelligence and other technologies is creating a narrow window for the UK and its allies to stay ahead, with the competitive landscape changing quickly. She says the “ground beneath our feet” is shifting as global technological power moves.

Keast-Butler argues that the UK must respond by deepening cooperation between government, industry, academia, and the public. She says cyber security can no longer be treated as a specialist issue limited to government and large corporations. Instead, it must be built into everyday behaviour and new technologies from the start. GCHQ spends much of its time countering organised criminal networks that target British businesses with phishing scams, ransomware, and other attacks.

Using the phrase “from boardrooms to living rooms,” she urges people and organisations to strengthen their own defences. At home, she says, that means taking action to switch passwords for passkeys. More broadly, she calls for security to be embedded in supply chains and for cyber protection to become far more urgent across society.