Russia is now the single greatest threat to Britain’s security, MI5 director general Sir Ken McCallum declared in his annual threat update. The warning comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited London today to press Prime Minister Andy Burnham for more help in pushing Russian forces back. (During his meeting with Zelensky, Burnham confirmed that the UK would accelerate the supply of crucial air defence missiles to Ukraine - including faster deliveries of British lightweight multi-role missiles to Ukraine, which have proved effective against Russian jet-powered drones).
“Russia remains aggressor number one,” McCallum said. He cited a string of Kremlin-linked hybrid attacks: a cyber attack on Polish energy infrastructure, an attempt to blow up a German cargo plane with an explosive-laden drone, and a thwarted assassination plot in the US. Closer to home, a man was charged last month with allegedly preparing to sabotage a drone factory in Swindon. Moscow, he said, is carefully staying below NATO’s Article 5 threshold. He added that it is “no accident” the Kremlin is trying to unsettle European homelands while its military progress in Ukraine is minimal and horrifically costly.
Only a few months ago, John Healey, then defence secretary and now chancellor, warned that Britain was living through a dangerous moment and needed to increase defence spending. McCallum’s speech suggests that moment has only deepened.
Also from the speech:
Cold War comparison: MI5 is now devoting more resources to countering state threats than it did during the Cold War, and its state-threat caseload has quadrupled in a decade.
AI and bioweapons: McCallum warned that AI could put dangerous biological weapons knowledge within reach of even “comparatively low sophistication” terrorists. He launched a new spy-led AI Threat Assessment Centre (AITEC) to assess the risks.
“State-backed terrorism”: Defence Secretary Wes Streeting described the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare against the UK and its allies in those terms.
The Brexit row: McCallum cautioned against amplifying Russian trolls and doing their work of sowing discord for them. Burnham had claimed Russia interfered in the 2016 referendum, before his own minister clarified that there was no fresh evidence beyond Parliament’s earlier finding that the Kremlin tried but failed to sway the result.
☝️ For what this means for Ukraine, and why Zelensky’s timing matters, watch my insight video above.
Diesel markets will remain tight well into 2027, and wholesale diesel prices in Europe could rise again in the coming weeks, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned on Wednesday. In its monthly report, the Paris-based energy watchdog said recovering Gulf oil supplies had failed to resolve the fuel squeeze, with global output still falling short of consumption. Supply rose by 2.5 million barrels a day (mb/d) to 102.3 mb/d in September on a Saudi-led jump in Gulf crude exports to more than three-quarters of pre-war levels, but remains slightly below global demand of around 103.5 mb/d, the IEA estimated. The war that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February is far from over. Iran has choked the Strait of Hormuz, the route for about a fifth of the world’s oil, and recently stepped up attacks on ships there, while Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels are striking Saudi oil sites. “Renewed attacks in the Gulf leave the recovery fragile,” the IEA stated - Euronews
Iran-backed Houthi fighters reportedly hit the headquarters of Saudi Arabia’s national oil company in overnight strikes, stoking a conflict that risks spiralling into a wider war. The attacks follow a Houthi onslaught that killed 13, injured hundreds, and forced Riyadh’s airport to shut at least through Saturday, denting the kingdom’s reputation for stability and piling pressure on the country’s de facto ruler. Analysts fear the conflict could expand beyond the Arabian Peninsula: The Houthis are reportedly building an advanced missile using Chinese parts. US President Donald Trump has accused the group of “purposefully trying to drive up Oil Prices” ahead of November’s midterm elections; Tehran is reportedly targeting crude tankers in a bid to keep prices elevated - Semafor
Your fridge may soon have ambitions. According to a front-page report in today’s Financial Times, Anthropic is warning that self-replicating AI “worms” could be only months away from hopping between the smart gadgets in our homes: ovens, TVs, robot vacuums and even lawnmowers. As the FT reports, the San Francisco-based developer of the Claude chatbot set out the risk in a research post on Monday. It described AI agents that could copy themselves from device to device with no human pulling the strings, creating a new kind of cyber threat that would be hard to contain. Anthropic says it is already seeing early signs of these worms. It likens their slow creep across poorly secured devices to a “digital slime mold.” Not the mental image anyone wants next to their toaster. The FT notes that the warning comes after investigators were rattled this summer by an attack on Hugging Face, reportedly carried out by swarms of OpenAI agents. The weak spot is the internet of things. Smart thermostats, lights and cameras have multiplied over the past decade, and many come from manufacturers with shoddy security or that have since gone out of business. That leaves no one to patch them. The FT’s account of Anthropic’s prognosis is that the future will be crowded with AI agents running on all kinds of hardware, and that some of them won’t be under human control. The cheap, lightweight ones may also be less squeamish than human hackers about hijacking huge chunks of the world’s connected devices. Time to check what your vacuum’s been up to.
Russia has arrested a Japanese journalist on the far east island of Sakhalin and accused him of spying, in the latest sign of rising tensions between Moscow and Tokyo. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova identified the reporter as Yuki Imai, from the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper, adding that he had been accused of “conducting espionage activities on Russian territory”. Japan’s foreign ministry summoned the Russian ambassador in Tokyo, Nikolay Nozdrev, over the arrest later on Wednesday. Imai, a reporter at the newspaper’s bureau in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on Sakhalin, was reportedly preparing to return to Japan when he was arrested for allegedly collecting information on Russia’s defence capabilities, according to Russia’s Tass news agency. Russia’s FSB security agency claimed the journalist had intended to pass the information on to Japanese intelligence. The FSB published a video showing masked officers storming a hotel room, pushing a man to the floor and handcuffing him. The man was flown to Moscow, where a court ordered he be held in pre-trial detention. It did not say when the arrest or court hearing occurred. The charges carry up to 20 years in prison - The Guardian
In Wartime Odesa, the Parking Money Goes Home with the Deputy Mayor’s Family
Odesa drivers have started a quiet boycott. Videos by local investigative journalist Kateryna Berendakova, who says she never expected such a public response, have spread across the city’s social media. Her charge: the partner of Odesa’s acting deputy mayor is collecting millions of hryvnias from drivers without investing a thing.
According to Berendakova, the parking signs and equipment were paid for out of the municipal budget. Yet payments go to a private business, and its owner’s name is printed on the signs. The comments under her posts show how the anger is turning into action. Residents say they now refuse to pay, park blocks away, or would rather risk a fine so the money at least goes to the state. Residents, she says, don’t want to pay out of their own pockets to support someone’s private interests. She is now demanding that the city take the lots back into municipal control, and says it’s time officials stopped ignoring Odesans.
Berendakova says it is shameful that, in wartime of all times, Odesa drivers are being fleeced on such a scale.
The numbers behind the backlash come from a May investigation by the Odesa outlet Intent. The municipal operator Odestransparkservice has handed prime parking to private operators, who keep far more than they pass on. Sole proprietor Karina Yablonska runs the parking around the Novyi and Kyivskyi markets. Her business earned about UAH 8.4 million (roughly $200,000) in 2025, and only UAH 3.6 million of that went to the city. Her contracts run to 2029. (Yablonska did not answer Intent’s questions; a representative promised replies that never came.)
Since then, the stakes have risen. In July, Yablonska’s partner, Andrii Makovetskyi, was named acting deputy mayor of Odesa, overseeing the council’s executive bodies. He was formerly first deputy mayor of nearby Teplodar. The couple are in what Ukrainians call a civil marriage, an unregistered union. Her earnings nonetheless appear in his official asset declarations, as the law requires for family members.
A second operator, the NGO Sirena, was co-founded by the father of city councillor Eduard Stas. It controls some 5,600 square metres downtown. Over five years it paid the city about UAH 840,000, while Intent estimates the space could bring in around UAH 20 million a year. The councillor denies any involvement in parking.
Sirena’s contracts expire at year’s end. Whether the city renews them, with a deputy mayor appointed in July whose own household profits from the same system, is now the test.
Trump advisers had been wrangling to save Kimberly Guilfoyle‘s job as US ambassador to Greece before she was asked to resign Tuesday amid allegations of improper and possibly illegal conduct during her time in Athens, insiders tell the Daily Mail. Sources revealed cronies close to the president had been working behind the scenes to keep his former fiancé in the post – fearing she could return to the US with an axe to grind and spill Trump family secrets. Now, after Guilfoyle’s resignation, insiders claim she has kept a secret ‘burn book’ documenting the Trumps and is ready to burn her bridges with the family following her dramatic fall from grace. She is now threatening to release contents of the diary insiders are dubbing ‘The Devil Wears MAGA.’ Guilfoyle, 57, had been a fixture in President Trump’s inner circle throughout her six-year relationship with and engagement to Don Jr – invited to private gatherings and becoming privy to their personal conversations. And while the couple broke off their engagement in 2024, Guilfoyle maintained ties to the family after securing her appointment as US ambassador to Greece – an 11-month stint that came under scrutiny following the Daily Mail’s expose into her lavish lifestyle and allegations of misconduct. The White House on Tuesday confirmed Guilfoyle was asked to resign, following reports that President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been left ‘extremely p***ed off’ by her alleged antics, which prompted a State Department Office Inspector General investigation last week. Allies of the president are said to be relieved that Guilfoyle is leaving her post, but insiders have warned the Trump family may not have heard the last of her - The Daily Mail
The journals…
