Berija & Co. (Episode 2)

By August 1949, at least five years earlier than expected, the USSR became the world’s second superpower, thanks to its spies who had stolen America’s atomic secrets. But by March 1953, Stalin is dead and KGB chief, Beria, is executed later the same year. Nikita Kruschev tries to reduce the power of the security service, splitting it into several sections...but it doesn’t last and, soon, the KGB is back. Abroad, it has pulled off its greatest-ever recruitment coup – a mole at the very top of the CIA.

Set up as a ‘temporary’ measure by Lenin, millions of Soviet citizens would die at the hands of the secret services as internal dissent, real or imaginary, was crushed. Outside the Soviet Union,…

By August 1949, at least five years earlier than expected, the USSR became the world’s second superpower, thanks to its spies who had stolen America’s atomic secrets. But by March 1953, Stalin is…

Coup d’etats, assassinations, sex scandals, radioactive poisoning....it’s the stuff of a Bond movie. But in today’s Russia, it’s all very real. Under Vladimir Putin, the KGB or FSB as it’s now called…