Russians not without reason view themselves as the best of spies. And they view the British as second-best. Here is a tale of the Brits getting the better of the Russians during the disgraceful collapse of the USSR. http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htintel/articles/20140713.aspx Long and short of it. In 1992, Vasili Mitrokhin the archivist at the KGB - bugged out taking a stash of very sensitive KGB records and went to Britain. A great number of Soviet/Russian agents (already not paid due to collapse of the USSR) were compromised and quietly rolled up. His stash also had many delectable tidbits of information. Needless to say, that once the Russians got their act sort of together they were not at all happy. The link also discusses the rise of the successors of the old KGB (DVR and FSB) and the evergreen GRU. This is old enough to be more history than intelligence but shows how the game is played.
