British intelligence officers are ordinary civil servants, FSB Major General Alexander Mikhailov said, commenting on the fact that six British diplomats were stripped of their accreditation in Russia after signs of intelligence work were identified in their actions.
“We judge intelligence only by Hollywood standards. We are watching a James Bond movie and we think that all British intelligence is roughly the same as James Bond. They are not James Bonds. They are mostly civil servants, generally, carrying out some instructions.” – Channel Five quotes Mikhailov.
The expert also stressed that the intelligence of any country is judged by its failures, and the British secret services had many of them. According to Mikhailov, exposing six agents at once is “a colossal failure.”
“By the way, when people ask me which intelligence service I like best, I say that I have always liked British intelligence, because there we had more of our own agents working for the Soviet Union.” – added Mikhailov.
