I’m an ex-KGB intelligence officer, and I can categorically say Moscow will always spy on Britain, just as MI6 and the CIA will not stop spying on Russia.
Several recent cases have emerged around Europe that involve alleged spying for Russia. It’s just a job and, in the eyes of many Russians, quite an honourable one.
They respect and sometimes even admire their spies. Soviet intelligence officers who stole the secrets of the atomic bomb from the West have had their faces printed on Russian postage stamps. One of them was Anatoly Yatskov, who was my instructor at the Andropov Red Banner Institute of the KGB.
This small group of operatives, just half a dozen people, is credited in Russia with helping to accelerate the Soviet nuclear programme and restore the strategic balance between the West and the Soviet Union. Arguably, thanks to their secret work, Moscow and Leningrad escaped the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the rest of the world was spared a Third World War.
It is also important to remember that the Soviets spied on America and Britain even when the countries were allies in their war against Nazi Germany. It would be naive to expect a friendlier attitude from today’s Russian intelligence services, when Britain is a major supporter of Ukraine.
But the activities of Russian or Soviet spies are only half the story. The other half concerns the people who supply them with top-secret information. Those who passed on atomic secrets in Britain and America did so voluntarily, and without notable payment.
I became a cadet at the KGB spy school in 1985. A KGB major named Vladimir Putin graduated from it the same year. We had the same professors, instructors and top-secret manuals.
Putin and I were taught that an important part of KGB espionage theory known as the agent operational environment. It concerned the ways in which conditions in a target country affected intelligence operations: its politics, economic situation, psychological climate and public attitudes towards the intelligence officer’s own country.
These things can significantly impact the number and type of people who might be willing to cooperate, and how covert operations can function.
According to this doctrine, the number of intelligence officers operating in a country is not the most important factor. You can have dozens of spies, but without a favourable agent operational environment, they will likely achieve very little.
In the 1930s, considerable numbers of people in Britain and America were attracted to communist ideology and were sympathetic towards the Soviet Union. This helps explain the extraordinary results achieved by Soviet espionage in both countries.
Back then, British businessman Oscar Deutsch created a chain of cinemas called Odeon. Meanwhile, his cousin Arnold Deutsch was working for Soviet intelligence.
Arnold recruited members of what became known as the Cambridge Five: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross. How did he manage it? Simple: they were willing to spy for the Soviet Union.
By the 1940s, the agent operational environment had become even more favourable for Soviet intelligence. The Soviet Union was bearing the heaviest burden of the war against Germany, and those who passed atomic secrets to the Soviets wanted to help an ally. They also believed that a US monopoly on nuclear weapons would be dangerous for the world.
Now let’s apply that doctrine to the UK today.
The country is vulnerable to foreign espionage for reasons that go far beyond the number of intelligence officers operating here. Many Britons have become disillusioned with their political class, and that makes it a ripe environment for spies to operate in, because they’re able to find more informants.
There’s the scandal of grooming gangs and allegations of institutional failures and cover-ups involving politicians, the media and the police. There are the Jeffrey Epstein and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor revelations, as well as growing economic hardship and concerns about immigration.
Russia’s current crop of spies will be looking to take advantage of all of these, if it helps them get information and sources.
It is true that the war in Ukraine has greatly diminished sympathies for Russia that once existed in parts of the West. But it’s not just about Russia. Other countries will be enjoying a more favourable environment in which to pursue their intelligence interests.
Last Christmas, I gave my grandchildren an electronic keyboard. It was made in China. Their parents gave me an excellent winter jacket from Marks & Spencer, also made in China. When I went home after Christmas dinner, I took a Chinese-made bus, passing Chinese-made electric cars.
For Chinese spies, all of this is part of their operational environment. Many of the things we own are made in China; its economic model appears to be highly efficient and its people’s standard of living is improving – something that can’t be said about Britain. Many polls suggest that China enjoys a relatively positive image in many parts of the world. This all has an impact.
Foreign intelligence services will continue to spy on and in the UK, because they can. The UK’s security cannot be guaranteed simply by investing more money in the armed forces or intelligence services. The cracks are just too big. Meanwhile, spies will be spies. The problem is far older, and so ingrained that it will never go away.