Speech by Sir Richard Moore, Chief of SIS, 19 September 2025

REMARKS IN TURKISH 

Good morning, girls and gents. It is so good to be again in my second residence, Turkey, a rustic through which my spouse and I are privileged to have lived for eight years, most just lately after I served as British Ambassador for 4 fascinating years from 2014 by way of 2017.  

But my reference to Turkey began a lot earlier in 1989 when, as a younger language scholar, I arrived in Istanbul to board with a Turkish household for a number of weeks to enhance my newly learnt Turkish language. I fell in love with this marvellous nation, its terribly hospitable individuals, its fabulous delicacies and gorgeous mixture of historical past and breathtaking surroundings… and I fell in love with Besiktas soccer membership! The bond with Turkey was cemented by the arrival of my daughter, born right here in Istanbul, a real Istanbullu. 

But I didn’t simply select Istanbul for this speech for causes of sentiment, I did so as a result of, because it has been for hundreds of years, Turkey is a nation of pivotal significance to the worldwide system. On virtually the entire points that I’ve grappled with as Chief of MI6, Turkey has been a key participant.  

A NATO ally, Turkey has been a staunch supporter of Ukrainian sovereignty and independence, moved particularly by the plight of their ethnic cousins, the Tatars of the Crimea, however dedicated above all to worldwide regulation and the UN constitution. To their east they share the UK’s curiosity in a secure Caucasus and Central Asia free from malign exterior affect. And to the south we’ve got labored collectively towards so-called Islamic State terrorists and to shore up the soundness of publish Assad Syria.  

We each share the identical abhorrence on the bestial depravity of October seventh and dismay on the appalling struggling of harmless Palestinians in Gaza that has adopted, and we consider that solely a two-state resolution will ship lasting safety and prosperity for Israeli and Palestinians alike. In all these endeavours, I’ve been capable of work carefully with MIT administrators Hakan Fidan and now Ibrahim Kalin, who’re consummate professionals and agency pals. 

REMARKS IN ENGLISH: 

When I used to be appointed, I made a decision I’d communicate extra usually and extra brazenly, the place doing so might advance Britain’s nationwide curiosity. In my first public intervention on the Royal United Services Institute in London, I posited the paradox that MI6 wanted to “be more open to stay secret”.  

I used to be speaking a basic reality in regards to the world we now function in. If we’re to stay an efficient intelligence service within the twenty first century, and preserve the identities of our brokers and the tradecraft we use to run them secret, we should proceed to modernise and adapt; extending our partnerships, particularly in know-how, and strengthening our relationship with the society we serve, whether or not through social media the place we launched on Instagram final week, or by way of speeches like this one. And to do this we should be extra open.  

It’s a strategic strategy that I consider in much more strongly right now, and I do know my successor, Blaise Metreweli does too.  

Any organisation that desires to keep up its licence to function, notably one as distinctive as ours, should additionally earn and preserve belief. For us that comes from a unbroken dialogue with the British individuals, who we serve, and engagement with our worldwide companions, in international locations like Turkey. 

And that’s the reason I’ve been dedicated to explaining extra clearly who we’re, what we do, and why we do it. So, on this, my ultimate speech as C, I need to mirror just a little on what MI6 as an intelligence company has labored to attain over these previous 5 years in addition to contact on among the ongoing dangers that Blaise and her staff will probably be specializing in from October. I need to pay particular consideration to occasions in Europe, and Putin’s unlawful invasion of Ukraine – which has been a defining subject for me as Chief, and for our nation. 

First the evolution of MI6 itself – 5 years on, how are we completely different? I’ve at all times believed that MI6 ought to mirror the nation we’re right here to serve. Not simply because it’s the correct factor to do, however as a result of variety helps us to do a greater job of maintaining the UK protected. I’m happy we will level to progress. It’s on no account job achieved, however we’ve got made measurable enhancements.  

Many extra girls have taken on management roles throughout the company — in intelligence operations, at residence and abroad, and in our know-how groups. Alongside this, colleagues from ethnic minority backgrounds have been promoted into senior positions for the primary time. 

One of essentially the most shifting moments of my tenure was issuing a public apology to the LGBT+ group for the injustices they endured, particularly the ban on their serving in MI6 up till 1991. A second of delight. 

But we’ve got extra highway but to journey; we’re nonetheless solely 40% feminine employees, ethnic minorities are slightly below 10% of our officers, and we have to do extra to draw individuals from economically disadvantaged backgrounds – of all races. 

Nowhere have we would have liked to vary sooner than within the know-how house. Our adversaries wish to leverage cutting-edge applied sciences to assault UK pursuits with ever larger precision and scale. At MI6, we have to do two issues concurrently: counter these tech-infused threats; while additionally harnessing technological advances for our personal functions – the kind of know-how which emerges from universities, from start-ups, from huge tech, from worldwide collaboration like this week’s UK/US tech partnership, in addition to – in fact – from our sensible in-house technologists.   

Which is why considered one of my priorities as Chief was to forge new partnerships. Much of this mission is undertaken with HMGCC, the UK’s National Security Engineering Centre. Their personal daring transfer in direction of larger openness is manifest of their co-creation centre in Milton Keynes, which brings collectively technical experience from exterior authorities with in-house specialists to determine brilliantly progressive options for the trickiest nationwide safety challenges.  

We’re additionally serving to the UK and allies construct cutting-edge know-how by way of our partnership with the National Security Strategic Investment Fund. NSSIF backs British firms whose twin use know-how has each business and nationwide safety worth. The proper early assist from our intelligence group might help them thrive and hopefully grow to be the unicorns of the longer term.  

We assist daring, courageous corporations with huge concepts in fields like quantum computing, synthetic intelligence, and artificial biology. For the UK, this delivers each advances in our personal nationwide safety capabilities and creates worthwhile high-tech jobs at residence.  

This is how we keep forward. Not by retreating deeper into secrecy, however by being open sufficient to kind the correct partnerships, recruiting employees from each a part of society, and adapting on the pace of the threats we face. And we try this as a part of a UK intelligence group, MI6, MI5 and GCHQ – UKIC for brief. I consider nobody, worldwide, is best at intelligence collaboration than UKIC – that is our “secret sauce” and the envy of companions and adversaries alike. UKIC is a lot greater than the sum of its components.  

So, after I stated we would have liked to be extra open to remain secret, I meant it. It’s about tempo. It’s about innovation. It is about constructing belief inside UKIC after which extending belief to companions, past. MI6 can solely stay efficient and related within the years to return as a part of that wider staff.  

Trust, reality, deception and spying are key parts of the largest problem our Service and our nation has confronted in my 5 years as Chief: Russia’s unprovoked and unlawful invasion of Ukraine. We have been on the forefront of efforts to assist the Ukrainians of their self-defence, and their defence of the ideas on which all of us rely for our peace and safety. 

The management of President Zelenskyy has been crucial. I keep in mind the person I hosted for lunch in my first week as Chief; he was nonetheless fairly new into politics, an untried and untested chief. But even then, you possibly can sense the grit and willpower. To have watched him grow to be the chief he’s has been a outstanding privilege. My admiration for him is unbounded. I’m proud to say that assist for Ukraine amongst the British public stays steadfast, underpinning successive Prime Ministers’ willpower to be Kyiv’s staunchest advocate and ally. 

The struggling of the Ukrainian individuals is immense. The conflict has seen ranges of demise and destruction not seen in Europe since World War Il, and civilians have been focused with a chilly and calculated brutality.  In current weeks, Russia has stepped up its assaults on civilian targets nonetheless additional. 

There could be no equivalence between the struggling of the aggressor and the sufferer, however it’s completely clear that Putin’s lack of concern for human life extends additionally to his personal individuals. Russia has incurred greater than one million casualties, 1 / 4 of them killed, as poorly educated troops from Russia’s poorest areas are fed into the meat grinder.  

Every sane individual desires the killing to cease. I applaud the efforts of President Trump to resolve the battle, President Zelenskyy for his willingness to make very tough compromises, and European leaders working to attain a simply and lasting peace. 

However, I’ve seen completely no proof that President Putin has any curiosity in a negotiated peace wanting Ukrainian capitulation. He is stringing us alongside. Because the problem has and has at all times been sovereignty: Putin denies Ukraine’s sovereignty and its very existence as a rustic and a nation. 

He seeks to impose his imperial will by all means at his disposal. But he can not succeed: Russia merely doesn’t have the wherewithal to totally subjugate Ukraine by drive. Yes, they’re grinding ahead on the battlefield, however at a snail’s tempo and horrendous value, and Putin’s military continues to be far wanting its authentic invasion aims.  

Bluntly – Putin has bitten off greater than he can chew. He thought he was going to win a straightforward victory. But he – and lots of others – underestimated the Ukrainians, Indeed, Putin’s actions have strengthened Ukrainian nationwide id and accelerated the nation’s Westward trajectory, in addition to persuaded Sweden and Finland into becoming a member of NATO. 

Putin has sought to persuade the world that Russian victory is inevitable. But he lies. He lies to the world. He lies to his individuals. Perhaps, he even lies to himself. The ringing of an incoming cellphone name from the President is the equal of Pavlov’s tinkling bell contained in the Kremlin, eliciting realized behaviour to inform Putin no matter it’s the system thinks he desires to listen to. But we should always not consider him, or credit score him with energy he doesn’t have.  

In the run as much as his invasion in 2022, performing on excellent intelligence, the US and UK governments took a unprecedented step: declassifying intelligence that uncovered Putin’s lies and revealed Russia’s navy build-up and assault plans. It was a finely balanced name: it needed to be achieved in a means that may not endanger sources, but it surely proved massively impactful. It undercut Russian disinformation, halted Russia’s preliminary advance and rallied the alliance that got here to Ukraine’s help. 

The huge image stays that Putin is mortgaging his nation’s future for his personal private legacy and a distorted model of historical past. As such, Russia’s economic system and demography, and its means to undertaking imperial energy, are in long run decline – and Putin’s conflict is accelerating this decline. He invests not in infrastructure, colleges and hospitals however in missiles, munitions and morgues.  

History warns us by no means to underestimate a rustic preventing for its independence, and for its very survival. Greater powers than Russia have didn’t subjugate weaker powers than Ukraine. In the top, if we maintain our nerve, Putin might want to come to phrases with the truth that he has a alternative: to threat an financial and political disaster that threatens his personal rule, or make a wise deal. 

This is a alternative he would have needed to confront earlier, if not for the skin assist he has been receiving: sure, the drones from Iran, plus the lads and materiel from North Korea, however it’s the assist that China has constantly given to Russia, each diplomatically and likewise when it comes to “dual use goods” – the “Made in China” chemical compounds that find yourself of their shells; the digital parts that find yourself of their missiles – which have prevented Putin from reaching the conclusion that peace is his most suitable choice. And evidently, peace is within the curiosity of the Russian individuals. 

I have to be clear that my Government, my Service and myself should not hostile to Russia, solely to the actions of the Kremlin.  While Putin deceives and dissembles, our activity is to light up the reality.  

Putin shouldn’t be Russia. And not all Russians subscribe to Putinism. Some preserve their heads down and attempt to get on with their lives as finest they’ll. Some, like Alexei Navalny, resist brazenly, and die for his or her beliefs. But others achieve this secretly, by working with MI6. 

Intelligence officers immerse themselves within the cultures of their interlocutors. Russia is, in some ways, a giant a part of the historical past of MI6. The nation holds a particular place inside the service. MI6 is stuffed with women and men who know and love most of the achievements of Russian tradition, and who perceive and respect the sacrifices of its individuals in our shared wrestle towards Nazi Germany. 

To these women and men in Russia who’ve truths to share and the braveness to share them, I invite you to contact MI6. You will probably be working to carry peace to our continent; to guard the long-term pursuits – and redeem the honour – of your nation. You will probably be working with a world class organisation. We will do all the pieces in our energy to maintain you protected. Your wants and aspirations will probably be paramount. We might help you make a distinction. 

Spying is an historic craft, however the world has by no means been altering so quick – and we’re altering with it. Many of our greatest and most extremely motivated brokers have been volunteers who’ve supplied their companies to MI6. Our door is at all times open. 

And, from right now, now you can attain us securely on-line through our new darkish net portal, Silent Courier. Our digital entrance door harnesses the anonymity of the darkish net in order that anybody, wherever on this planet could make safe contact with MI6. So, contact us right now through Silent Courier and select a unique future for your self, for your loved ones and in your nation. 

But our attraction right now is to not Russians alone. Anyone, wherever on this planet with entry to delicate data referring to terrorism or hostile intelligence exercise, can use the brand new portal to contact MI6. 

Whilst Russia stays one of many key missions of MI6, the opposite three priorities, China, Iran and counter terrorism, are proving to be enduring challenges too. Which is why the UK in 2025 wants an MI6 that may function with agility and at scale. To obtain that purpose, I’m grateful successive Prime Ministers have recognised the necessity to fund our intelligence group appropriately, regardless of robust financial instances. 

China in lots of respects straddles that dichotomy of alternative and menace. As Russia declines, so China rises. The twenty first century will undoubtedly be outlined by the rise of the “Middle Kingdom”. A serious participant within the world system, a everlasting member of the UN Security Council, and a rustic that’s searching for to deepen its regional alliances, China has distinctive obligations that include its measurement and ambition. In many areas of the worldwide commons: local weather change, safe Al and world commerce, China has an enormous and welcome function to play. We, within the UK, need a respectful and constructive relationship with China. 

But China wants to stay to the established guidelines of engagement and non-interference that it publicly promotes. I hear the considerations of my colleague, Director MI5 Sir Ken McCallum, about Chinese interference within the UK; and we, within the UK, will probably be strong in defending our freedoms, our lifestyle and our financial safety. 

Iran has featured closely all through my interval in workplace. A nuclear free Iran should stay a precedence, and I hope the Iranian authorities can see {that a} affluent and safe future lies in engagement and compromise, not blindly pursuing a technique that destabilises their neighbourhood and places them at odds with a lot of the remainder of the world.  

Their proxies, whereas bringing distress, violence and demise to the area, have gained Iran nothing, and we should hope their humbling by Israel might carry a possibility for a reset. That requires a change of mentality in Tehran, not but detected in intelligence.  

And Gaza wants peace too for such a reset to take maintain within the area, and to forestall the additional appalling struggling of harmless Palestinians – that we see so persistently on our TV screens – fuelling radicalisation globally. We must see the hostages returned and help flowing freely.  

On the broader matter of counter terrorism, we proceed to work carefully with our sister businesses within the UK – GCHQ, MI5 and in addition to with CT policing, and abroad companions together with Turkey, sustaining a relentless give attention to the terrorist menace. 

In current years, terrorist organisations such because the so-called Islamic State and Al Qaida have been broken by a collective effort to degrade their capabilities. The menace has come extra through the keyboard from homegrown, self-radicalised lone operators – a dispersed and networked hazard. But IS and AQ wish to re-group to use battle and ungoverned areas to re-establish themselves, whereas utilizing know-how to unfold their violent ideologies on-line. We want agility and good partnerships to defeat these efforts to terrorise. And we’d like statesmen to deal with the foundation causes of the radicalisation that lead on to terrorism. 

In my stint as Chief, we’ve got confronted many surprising crises: the implosion of Sudan into civil conflict, the collapse of the Ghani authorities in Afghanistan, the top of 53 years of the Assads in Syria to call however a couple of. We delight ourselves in our potential to keep up the long-term relationships which come into their very own in a disaster. 

We sourced intelligence on Sudan in hours; we proceed to counter terror emanating from Afghanistan, and, having solid a relationship with HTS a 12 months or two earlier than they toppled Bashar, we solid a path for the UK Government to return to the nation inside weeks.  

Syria is an effective instance of the place, if you may get forward of occasions, it actually helps once they instantly, unexpectedly transfer at a sooner tempo. This nimbleness is a basic requirement for MI6 – and I feel we stay fairly good at it. John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, whereas discussing a chunk of joint enterprise, stated to me just lately: “You guys can really hustle.” 

We delight ourselves on that hustle, that tenacity, and it’s a attribute that’s deeply current in my successor Blaise Metreweli. An intelligence officer to her core, with 1 / 4 of a century of expertise on this enterprise, she understands the center of spying. But greater than that, she will get how know-how can allow human espionage. She’s spent 4 years as ‘Q’, not simply shaping our strategy to fast-evolving applied sciences like Al, but in addition delivering progressive tech to the agent-runners, primarily based on her deep understanding of human intelligence. 

It’s on that matter – Human Intelligence or HUMINT – that I need to draw my remarks to a detailed.  I come again to this topic time and again in my numerous speeches for a motive. We recruit and run clandestine brokers. It’s what we do.  

In Prague, I referred to as on Russians disillusioned and dismayed by Putin’s agenda to return spy with us, identical to their grandparents and oldsters did. Because of their bravery, and the bravery of different brokers around the globe, our ministers fairly often play their playing cards figuring out a minimum of some of what’s within the different facet’s hand, which improves their potential to ship a world primarily based on guidelines, stability and democracy.  

Many individuals assume that they know our most well-known brokers. But neither l, nor every other Chief will ever verify their names. Indeed, due to our binding promise, most of our most consequential brokers will journey by way of historical past faceless and anonymous to the general public, however quietly celebrated inside MI6 by these few, even inside the Service, who know. 

As I step away, I mirror on how a lot has modified throughout my profession as an intelligence officer. From the Cold War with the Soviet Union to Putin’s scorching conflict on European soil; from Abu Nidal to 9/11. To our rise in countering the menace; from an analogue world of a number of passports to now ubiquitous surveillance; the world of espionage has modified.  

But change is in every single place. It’s in geopolitics, it’s in our local weather and it’s within the know-how revolution. It’s within the dangers and adversaries that we face off towards. Change is a continuing.  

And, in fact, Chiefs want to vary too. I really feel immensely assured that my successor, ‘Q’ –  shortly to grow to be ‘C’- whereas being true to the previous, to our values and to our mission, has the recent eyes wanted to fulfill the problem of change. After virtually 4 a long time in public service, I’m now hanging up my cloak, returning my imaginary dagger to its scabbard, and handing over my well-known inexperienced pen. Running MI6 has been the privilege of my life. There is not any organisation prefer it on this planet. Our individuals, our companions, our mission, the integrity with which we do our work, is second to none. I depart figuring out that the mission goes on, that our capabilities are sturdy, and that we’re in very protected fingers.  

As I step into the subsequent chapter, I’ve the prospect to pause, to take inventory and to mirror on what a unprecedented private journey it has been. It was George Smiley – John le Carré’s legendary spymaster – who stated: “There are moments which are made up of too much stuff for them to be lived at the time they occur.” I look ahead to reflecting again on all that stuff.