LONDON, December 3 -- The chief of British foreign intelligence agency MI6 is set to deliver a speech warning Russia not to underestimate the UK's "capabilities" and "determination". Alex Younger's speech comes after a brazen nerve agent attack on a retired double agent in England stoked fears about Russian covert activity abroad. In only his second public address since becoming the head of MI6 four years ago, Alex Younger will warn Russia "or any other state intent on subverting our way of life not to underestimate our determination and our capabilities or those of our allies," the Press Association said. Younger will outline how, after the attack on Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who betrayed dozens of agents to MI6, Britain's allies in Europe and the United States ordered the biggest expulsion of Russian diplomats since the height of the Cold War. The 55-year-old is also expected to describe how his agency played a central role in exposing the alleged perpetrators of the Salisbury nerve agent attack and the subsequent expulsion of Russian diplomats. Britain identified the nerve agent deployed in the town of Salisbury as Novichok, a highly potent group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet military in the 1970s and 1980s. Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement and accused British intelligence agencies of staging the attack to stoke anti-Russian hysteria. Speaking at St Andrews University in Scotland, where he once studied, Younger will say that Britain's spies have thwarted multiple Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) plots originating overseas and that it is "well equipped" to counter adversaries taking advantage of the "blurred lines" between the "cyber and physical worlds". Earlier this year, Jeremy Fleming, head of Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) spy agency accused Russia of "not playing to the same rules" and blurring the boundaries between criminal and state activity. As the UK is due to leave the European Union on March 29, Younger will also say MI6 continues to work with partner agencies to strengthen "indispensable security ties" in Europe.
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