“Cost of Not Supporting Ukraine Would Be Infinitely Higher,” Warns UK’s Spy Chief

Richard Moore, Chief of the UK Secret Intelligence Service, warned of the global consequences of failing to support Ukraine.

Speaking at the British Embassy in Paris on November 29, Moore claimed that withholding aid to Kyiv would pose significant risks to international stability.

"The cost of supporting Ukraine is well known but the cost of not doing so would be infinitely higher. If Putin succeeds, China would weigh the implications, North Korea would be emboldened and Iran would become still more dangerous.”

Moore cautioned that Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s territorial ambitions extend beyond Ukraine.

"If Putin is allowed to succeed in reducing Ukraine to a vassal state he will not stop there. Our security - British, French, European, and transatlantic - will be jeopardized," he said.

According to Moore, global stability is more threatened than it has ever been in the last 37 years, citing the dangers presented by the expanding reach of the Islamic State, violence in the Middle East, “the rise of an increasingly assertive China,” and a Russian “campaign of sabotage” in Europe.

“Even as Putin and his acolytes resort to nuclear sabre-rattling to sow fear about the consequences of aiding Ukraine,” Moore said, “France and Britain are united and unflinching in our determination to support Ukraine, for as long as it takes, to defeat Russia’s war of aggression, and protect European security and the international order.”

Earlier in November, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called for measures that would not only sustain Ukraine’s resistance, but decisively influence the war’s trajectory and increase its cost for Russia and its authoritarian allies.

“The cost of supporting Ukraine represents only a fraction of our annual defense budgets,” Rutte said, “It is a small price for peace. The question is, can we afford not to pay it?”