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Arild11 t1_isnjqt4 wrote

Reply to comment by kittenconfidential in Hong Kong protester dragged into Manchester Chinese consulate grounds and beaten up by AlxIp

Not much you can do about Putin, as he never leaves Kreml. But the FSB in the UK has been practically neutered since the attempted poisoning of the Skripals. The level of counter intelligence they've been facing is debilitating.

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axonxorz t1_ispfuxg wrote

Don't know what's worse: FSB agents acting on foreign soil with impunity, or that apparently the UK's intelligence apparatus was/is able to curtail it at their whim.

I know counterintelligence is a thing, but I don't know how to read that sequence of events as anything other than MI5 dropping the ball and having to overcompensate.

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Arild11 t1_isv651a wrote

I don't think anyone expected the FSB to act as utterly brazenly as they did, spraying nerve gas in a major Western town. That was unthinkable even during the height of the Cold War, and the KGB wouldn't ever have done it.

Dropping the ball means someone had an idea they had gone rogue state.

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