UK news
fromwww.independent.co.uk
9 hours agoBritain is losing hybrid war with Russia and cannot cope with conflict, warns ex-aide
The UK is unprepared for major disruptions and needs a strategic response to current global threats.
Gannon Ken Van Dyke was part of the operation to capture Maduro in January and used his access to classified information to make money on the prediction market site Polymarket, the federal prosecutor's office in New York said.
Many sources have informed The Telegraph that personnel have submitted applications for premature voluntary release, with departures from the regiment described as significant and even considered a 'threat to national security.'
Collard had been having a live dialogue about Mandelson with the separate UK Security Vetting (UKSV) team, based in the Cabinet Office. Collard had then asked to speak to Robbins for what turned out to be a critical meeting: it concluded with Mandelson being granted vetting clearance.
Many of the foundations that have underpinned Australia's security, prosperity and democracy are being tested: social cohesion is eroding, trust in institutions is declining, intolerance is growing, even truth itself is being undermined by conspiracy, mis- and disinformation.
This investigation continues at pace with a number of lines of inquiry being pursued by our detectives. The warrants of further detention for these three men will allow us to continue the investigation, while mitigating any potential risk to the public as we do so. This has been a long-running investigation and part of our ongoing work to disrupt malign activity where we suspect it.
Sir Richard Moore the former UK's MI6 spy chief has told Sky News that he finds the tens of thousands of Russian troops killed in Ukraine just in December 2025, "astonishing." Vladimir Putin has lost more troops in Ukraine during fighting in December 2025 than Moscow lost during the ten-year Soviet-Afghan war. The Soviet-Afghan war started in 1979 until 1989 and around 20,000 Soviet soldiers were killed. The Russia President Mikhail Gorbachev called the war a "bleeding wound" and was viewed as a "humiliating mistake." Putin has made the same mistake as Gorbachev made in 1979, as he believed the Afghan war would be a "quick operation," as Moscow wanted to takeover Afghanistan.
A double agent, by contrast, is an intelligence asset who is knowingly and deliberately directed by one service to engage another in espionage. The controlling service uses that agent to feed information (called feed material) -true, false, or mixed-to the adversary. They do so to simultaneously study the adversary's tradecraft, collection priorities, and decision-making. In the Russian system, double agents also serve a bureaucratic function: they generate statistics, "success stories," and operational narratives that demonstrate effectiveness to political overseers and ultimately to Putin himself.
The Telegraph reports that the activity focused on phones used by senior aides around former prime ministers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak, with the suspected access stretching back to 2021. Intelligence sources described the compromise as extensive, with one saying the activity went "right into the heart of Downing Street," although it remains unclear whether the prime ministers' own devices were accessed directly.
The scam typically involves state-backed fraudsters applying for remote IT work in the west, using fake identities and the help of facilitators in the country where the company targeted is based. Once hired, they send their wages back to Kim Jong-un's state and have even been known to threaten to release sensitive company data after being fired.