MI5 boss warns of growing threat from Russia

Russia poses an escalating threat to the stability of the UK, the director general of MI5 has warned.

In the first newspaper interview given by a serving MI5 chief in the organisation's 107-year history, Andrew Parker told The Guardian an "increasingly aggressive" Russia is using every tool at its disposal to achieve its aims.

While much of the world's focus is on Islamic extremism, covert action from Russia is a growing danger, he said.

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"It is using its whole range of state organs and powers to push its foreign policy abroad in increasingly aggressive ways – involving propaganda, espionage, subversion and cyber-attacks," said Parker. "Russia is at work across Europe and in the UK today. It is MI5's job to get in the way of that."

Moscow's targets include military secrets, industrial projects, economic data and government and foreign policy, continued the MI5 boss, saying the advent of cyberwarfare made the situation even more dangerous than the Cold War.

"Russia increasingly seems to define itself by opposition to the West and seems to act accordingly," said Parker. "You can see that on the ground with Russia's activities in Ukraine and Syria.

"But there is high-volume activity out of sight with the cyber-threat. Russia has been a covert threat for decades. What's different these days is that there are more and more methods available."

Parker also said that in his landmark interview that the security services had foiled 12 jihadi terror plots in the past three years and estimated there were around 3,000 "violent Islamic extremists" in the UK, most of whom are British.