(CNN) – The heads of the US CIA and the UK’s foreign intelligence service, known as MI6, highlighted the importance of intelligence collaboration between their countries in an unprecedented joint public appearance in London on Saturday.
The event, a debate at the Financial Times Weekend Festival chaired by the newspaper’s editor Roula Khalaf, marks the first time that the two men, MI6’s Richard Moore and CIA chief Bill Burns, have appeared together on a public stage.
The two men discussed the importance of collaboration between the United States and the United Kingdom, particularly in the face of Russian aggression. Burns cited the run-up to the war in Ukraine, launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022, as one of the best examples.
“Going back to the fall of 2021, the two of us together, our services together, we were able to provide credible, early and accurate warning of the coming invasion, which was no small feat at the time, because almost every other service in the entire “The world, our intelligence counterparts, thought this was simply a hoax on Putin’s part,” the CIA chief said.
“I think that good intelligence allowed our leaders, our political leaders, to mobilize a very strong coalition to counter Putin’s aggression,” he added.
Burns said this helped the Ukrainians defend themselves. He also spoke of a “novel approach” to declassifying some secrets in that period as a way to deny Putin the opportunity to peddle false narratives. This put Putin in the “unusual and uncomfortable position of being on the wrong foot,” Burns said.
Speaking about the threat from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, Moore said there was a lot of “pragmatic cooperation” between these countries.
“Of course, you can see it, unfortunately, on the battlefield in Ukraine. You can see North Korea, North Korean weapons. You can see the Iranian drones. You can see the kind of help the Chinese have provided through dual-use material. All of that can be seen in our world.”
In addition to this, Burns said there has not yet been any “direct evidence” of China providing weapons and ammunition to Russia for use in Ukraine. However, he said: “We see a lot of things that don’t look like that, as Richard said, in terms of dual-use items, the kind of things that have allowed Putin over the course of the last 18 months or so to significantly rebuild his base. defense industry and that pose a real danger.”
Damaging the Kremlin narrative
Speaking about Ukraine’s surprise offensive in the Kursk border region with Russia, Burns said such developments help counter Putin’s “arrogant and presumptuous attitude.”
According to Burns, Putin’s stance on the war in Ukraine has been that “it is only a matter of time before the Ukrainians are crushed and all his supporters in the West are worn down,” allowing the Russian president to dictate the terms for an agreement.
Events like the Ukrainian offensive on Kursk help “put a dent” in that narrative and raise questions among the Russian elite about “where this is all going,” Burns said. Last month’s offensive saw Ukrainian forces storm Kursk in a cross-border raid that took even US officials by surprise.
Burns described the offensive on Kursk as a “significant tactical achievement” that has served to boost Ukrainian morale as well as expose some of the vulnerabilities of Putin’s Russia and its military. Last year’s short-lived insurrection by former Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin also helped put a dent in this narrative, Burns said.
However, the CIA chief does not see Putin’s grip on power weakening. “There is one thing he does very well: repress people in his country.”
Discussing negotiations to reach a ceasefire and a deal on hostages in Gaza, Burns said the United States is “working very hard” with mediators Egypt and Qatar to refine the framework proposed by Biden in May and put it “in a good enough proposal” for both Israeli and Hamas leaders to see the value in moving forward with it.
He stressed that, in his experience with Middle East negotiations, “perfection is never on the table,” and added that he could not say with certainty that “we are going to be successful,” or how close the United States and the mediators might be to an agreement at this time.
There is a lot at stake for the Palestinians and the Israelis, as well as strategically in the region, Burns said. But above all, what is at stake is “in human terms,” he said, pointing to the hostages taken by Hamas-led militants who are still alive and living in “hellish conditions,” as well as the “countless mothers and fathers in Gaza who are grappling with their own “terrible losses” and the worsening humanitarian situation in the enclave.
Biden first announced the framework for a peace plan between Israel and Hamas on May 31, which he said Israel had agreed to. The three-phase proposal combined the release of hostages with a “total and complete ceasefire.” The plan provided for the withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops towards eastern Gaza.
Both sides have since pointed out what they see as glaring gaps in the agreement’s framework, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israeli forces will never abandon the stretch along the Egypt-Gaza border known like the Philadelphi Corridor.
Hostage release efforts took on new urgency earlier this month with the discovery of the bodies of six hostages in a tunnel beneath the southern Gaza city of Rafah, including Israeli-American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
The conversation with Moore and Burns was preceded by a jointly written editorial in the Financial Times newspaper in which they emphasized that the international world order was “under threat in a way we have not seen since the Cold War.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
