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"Crimea ( please dont answer cry-who-er where dat den )
sable rattling in the Ukraine ( please dont say me-craine ? where dat den ?)
turning on and off the gas pipe lines
intervention in Syria
the Cold War IS back on ....wake up and smell the wodka ! "
Dead right PP - I sometimes think half the people here are actually drugged on vodka. Get this folks: the Russian intelligence services never at any time downgraded theit espionage against the west in terms of agents, illegals etc. It's not always, I suspect, for any other reason than abject paranoia and general inquisitiveness.
What is happening now is a bit different: they have a huge resource in talented, biddable young IT specialists, and the potentioal of cyber warfare is only just being exploited. Sure, the west spies on Russia, of course it does, sure it hacks into Russian computer systems no doubt. But not for malicious and offensive purposes. And even if it did, that does not mean you lie down and take it.
As mikey says, this is an unprecedented situation. Suggesting that the security agencies are just "the establishment" who need to be stood up to is so asinine it defies belief. If you hire yourself a bodyguard you do it for a reason.