The Spy Who Betrayed Britain: A Former MI6 and GCHQ Employee Arrested for Espionage

In a shocking revelation, a former employee of the British intelligence agencies MI6 and GCHQ was arrested in January 2024 on suspicion of spying for Russia. David Smith, who worked as a communications and encryption specialist, is accused of passing classified information to a foreign power, potentially compromising the security and interests of the United Kingdom and its allies.

In a recent video interview, Boris Volodarsky, a former captain of the Russian special forces, the GRU Spetsnaz, who is now a historian of intelligence and an expert on KGB poisonings, shared his insights on the case of Smith. Volodarsky, who defected to the UK in 1996, has written several books on the history and methods of the Soviet and Russian intelligence services, including The KGB’s Poison Factory: From Lenin to Litvinenko and Stalin’s Agent: The Life and Death of Alexander Orlov.

Volodarsky said that Smith would have been “very attractive for the Russian intelligence” because he had access to sensitive information on the communications, encryption, cybersecurity and covert operations of the UK. He added that he was “rather surprised that he got his clearance” because he had family and personal backgrounds that should have raised the suspicions of the British security services.

Volodarsky explained that Smith had a Russian grandfather who served in the Red Army during World War II, and that he himself married a Russian woman whom he met online in 2016. He suggested that Smith could have been recruited by the Russian intelligence either by blackmail, or by ideology, or by greed, or by all three at once.

Volodarsky stated that “whether he worked for them or not, that’s another question” because it would take Smith’s trial to know the truth and the extent of his betrayal. He concluded that this case was “a blow” for the MI6 and the GCHQ, who would have to review their procedures of vetting and monitoring their agents and employees.

The arrest of Smith is the latest in a series of espionage scandals that have rocked the UK in recent years, involving former or current members of the British intelligence community. In 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer who spied for MI6, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury, in an assassination attempt that was blamed on the Russian state. In 2019, Daniel Houghton, a former MI5 officer, was jailed for 10 years for trying to sell classified information to Dutch agents posing as Russian spies. In 2020, Matthew Hedges, a former MI6 analyst, was pardoned by the United Arab Emirates after being sentenced to life imprisonment for espionage.

These cases highlight the ongoing threat of foreign espionage and the challenges of counterintelligence in the modern era. They also raise questions about the effectiveness and reliability of the British intelligence agencies, and their ability to protect their secrets and their sources. As Volodarsky warned, “the enemy is always watching, and the enemy is always trying to penetrate”.