There is "absolutely no evidence" that Russia's President Vladimir Putin wants to negotiate peace in Ukraine, the outgoing head of Britain's foreign intelligence agency said Friday in a speech. Sir 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."
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.
Sir Richard Moore, the head of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency, delivers remarks at the U.K. consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, Sept. 19, 2025.
NTV/Reuters
During his tenure, Russia launched an 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.
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."
Speaking Thursday during a state visit to the U.K., President Trump voiced frustration with Putin, saying he had hoped the war in Ukraine would be easy to end — as he suggested it would before taking office — "because of my relationship with President Putin," but that the Russian leader had "really let me down."
That remark came about a month after Mr. Trump met with Putin in Alaska, and said after their summit that he believed the Russian leader wanted to end the war.
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet for their summit on the war in Ukraine, at U.S. Air Base on August 15, 2025, in Anchorage, Alaska.
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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.
Recruiting digital spies
Moore's speech came as the U.K. foreign office announced the launch of a new dark web portal by MI6 aimed at recruiting "new agents in Russia and around the world."
Called "Silent Courier," the U.K. government said the portal would harness the anonymity of the dark web and allow "anyone in the world with access to sensitive information relating to terrorism or hostile intelligence activity to securely contact the U.K. and offer their services."
The U.K. foreign office said instructions for how to access the portal would be available on its YouTube channel, and that it was modeled on a similar approach taken by the United States Central Intelligence Agency.
"We're asking those with sensitive information on global instability, international terrorism or hostile state intelligence activity to contact MI6 securely online," Moore said during his speech in Istanbul, according to a foreign office statement. "Our virtual door is open to you."
The headquarters of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, in London, UK, on Thursday, July 3, 2025.
Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg/Getty
The foreign office also said a new partnership with Google Cloud would improve communications between the U.K. and the U.S.
"Following the U.S. President's historic second State Visit to the U.K. this week, the U.K. and U.S. continue to strengthen their defence and security relationship in an increasingly uncertain world," the foreign office said. "Last week, a new partnership with Google Cloud means the U.K. and U.S. can communicate securely, so the UK and our closest ally can outmatch hostile actors who seek to cause chaos for working people by disrupting their everyday lives, including trying to steal sensitive information and launching targeted cyber campaigns."
Haley Ott contributed to this report.
