WOW! No wonder Russia's broke, and Washington thought it was the sanctions. The Henry Jackson a conservative think tank estimates that half of the British expats are Russian spies. If the amount of Russians in London stated by the Guardian a few years back is correct, it comes to about 75,000 - and that's a lot of people on the Russian payroll. The author said Russians believe that inciting this kind of suspicion is xenophobia, but they're probably just spies anyway. He also noticed outrage in London’s Russian expat community by those who aren't spies, and they're wondering what's wrong with them? Anyway the situation is serious, and they better start building internment camps and fast. The true scale of the workload facing Russia’s foreign intelligence agents has been revealed by a London based think tank, which estimates half of all Russian expats in the British capital are spies or informants. I’m no mathematician, but that seems like a hell of lot of work to get through. In essence, the report from the right-wing Henry Jackson Society – never one to exaggerate scant evidence to justify its existence – suggests that anywhere up to 75,000 Russians are providing intelligence to around 500 spy runners. The paperwork must be a nightmare and the lunches on expenses a massive drain on the Russian budget. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/443361-spies-russian-uk-agents/
Spies don't typically draw a salary. They are compensated for worthwhile information. Most spies do not work for an intelligence agency, they are simply people contacted by an intelligence agency to give them information in exchange for something. This could be a small lump sum of cash, blackmail, threats, coercion....all types of things. So the more appropriate word here is "snitch", not spy.
Wouldn't the same sort of statistics be true of the USA regarding Russian ex-pats, and the main clients for most of Dirty Donalds condo developments??
Okay forget the spies being paid, but the Russians that process the information have to be paid. Build those internment camps I say. Here's another Ruski, lock him up!
Isn't 'cash, blackmail, threats, coercion' what the MI6 does? Are you sure it's not projection? I can't believe that Britain is doing exactly what Putin wants, and sending the Russians back - with their money of course.
Actual real spies with years of training and full support in the field are fairly rare. Each major nation probably only has a handful of them. Most are simply analysts or people gathering information from informants. Even sleeper spies generally are totally independent but reliant on their home nation for something. I can only think a few real life James Bonds in recent history actually. I guess its simply counterproductive to spend all that effort on an individual who can be compromised so easily.