Russian spies are back—and more dangerous than ever

IT IS UNUSUAL for spymasters to taunt their rivals openly. But last month Bill Burns, the director of the CIA, could not resist observing that the war in Ukraine had been a boon for his agency. The remark might well have touched a nerve in Russia’s “special services”, as the country describes its intelligence agencies. Russian spies bungled preparations for the war and were then expelled from Europe en masse. But new evidence gathered by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a think-tank in London, shows that they are learning from their errors, adjusting their tradecraft and embarking on a new phase of political warfare against the West.