British spy chief says he sees no evidence Putin wants to negotiate
peace in Ukraine
[September 19, 2025]
By ANDREW WILKS
ISTANBUL (AP) — There is “absolutely no evidence” that Russia’s
President Vladimir Putin wants to negotiate peace in Ukraine, the head
of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency said Friday in an outgoing
speech.
Richard Moore, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6 as it is
more commonly known, said Putin was “stringing us along.”
“He seeks to impose his imperial will by all means at his disposal. But
he cannot succeed," Moore said. "Bluntly, Putin has bitten off more than
he can chew. He thought he was going to win an easy victory. But he –
and many others – underestimated the Ukrainians.”
The war has continued unabated in the three years since Russia invaded
its neighbor, despite renewed U.S.-led efforts in recent months to steer
Moscow and Kyiv to a settlement. Ukraine has accepted proposals for a
ceasefire and a summit meeting, but Moscow has demurred.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday during a state visit to the
United Kingdom that Putin “ has really let me down ” in peace efforts.
Moore was speaking at the British consulate in Istanbul after five years
as head of MI6. He leaves the post at the end of September. The agency
will then get its first female chief.
During his tenure, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in
February 2022, a war that has seen tens of thousands killed and still
rages, principally in eastern Ukraine.
Moore said the invasion had strengthened Ukrainian national identity and
accelerated its westward trajectory, as well as pushing Sweden and
Finland to join NATO.
“Putin has sought to convince the world that Russian victory is
inevitable. But he lies. He lies to the world. He lies to his people.
Perhaps he even lies to himself,” Moore told a news conference.
Referring to the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov, who conditioned dogs to
respond to a bell, Moore said a phone call from the Russian president
was "the equivalent of Pavlov’s tinkling bell inside the Kremlin,
eliciting learned behavior to tell Putin whatever it is the system
thinks he want to hear.”
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Russian President Vladimir Putin leads a cabinet meeting via
videoconference at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Sept.
17, 2025. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
He said that Putin was “mortgaging his country’s future for his own
personal legacy and a distorted version of history” and the war was
“accelerating this decline.”
Moore, who previously served as the U.K.’s ambassador to Ankara, the
Turkish capital, added that “greater powers than Russia have failed
to subjugate weaker powers than Ukraine.”
Analysts say Putin believes he can outlast the political commitment
of Ukraine’s Western partners and win a protracted war of attrition
by wearing down Ukraine’s smaller army with sheer weight of numbers.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is racing to expand its defense cooperation with
other countries and secure billions of dollars of investment in its
domestic weapons industry.
The spy chief was speaking as MI6 unveiled a dark web portal to
allow potential intelligence providers to contact the service.
Dubbed “ Silent Courier,” the secure messaging platform aims to
recruit new spies for the U.K., including in Russia.
“To those men and women in Russia who have truths to share and the
courage to share them, I invite you to contact MI6,” Moore said.
Not just Russians but “anyone, anywhere in the world” would be able
to use the portal to offer sensitive information on terrorism or
“hostile intelligence activity," he said.
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