#putin gave #Trump's envoy #Witkoff an award to pass along to a senior #CIA official whose son was killed in #Ukraine while fighting alongside #russians.

This award has been given to high-level spies, including the #UK's Kim #Philby, an agent for #USSR.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/putin-award-order-of-lenin-american-ukraine/

A recently published book, The #Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the #KGB, by the former #BBC security correspondent #GordonCorera, references the episode:

The book revealed - #CIA was concerned that #MI6 has a mole in it's senior ranks. That immediately sends chills through the spine of #CounterIntelligence officers, amid panic about ‘another #Philby’.

So #MI5 launched #OperationWedlock, & it lasted up to 20 years, but they found nothing in the end.

🔗 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/27/uk-spy-operation-wedlock-suspected-russian-double-agent-mi6

Well, why not? They couldn't detect #Philby , #Blunt or #Blake anyway...

MI5 refused to investigate ‘Russian spy’s’ links to Tories, says whistleblower
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/21/mi5-refused-to-investigate-russian-spys-links-to-tories-says-whistleblower

‘I did not let Kim Philby go. He gave me the slip’: says #mI6 spy #espionage

One really has to hand it to #philby, in Beirut, he was working as a correspondent for Observer & Economist, while also being employed by the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service #sis & #kgb

“deal” would've saved Philby from prison sentence. After all, Philby was considered by colleagues he had betrayed to be “a gentleman”.

#putin #fsb surpasses #deutsch by miles, a rezident walkin isn't enough

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/31/i-did-not-let-kim-philby-go-he-gave-me-the-slip-what-an-mi6-spy-told-me-over-lunch

Kim #Philby's epigraph

#spies #doubleagent #USSR

https://lazybear.io/notes/kim-philby-epigraph/