[mhoad]

Just as a heads up you seem to be referring to a VERY specific thing here and might not be meaning to.

“Inserting” someone into a hostile intelligence agency is known as a seeding operation and if you told me that they never were able to pull one off, I believe you.

However, they still had eyes and ears on the inside through a combination of recruiting existing officers already on the inside and via defectors.

Quite a lot has been written on the topic since then but I’d suggest checking out my other comment if you’re looking for some resources on that kind of thing.

[wrp]

I was carefully specific in saying that "our side had never successfully inserted agents into the USSR." I meant people from outside, during the Soviet period, and into the whole country, not just intelligence agencies.

In the current war, there is no doubt that NATO enjoys significant signals and imagery capability. It is the claim that they have extensively compromised Russian intelligence internals that I suspect is more propaganda than reality.