The KGB is back in vogue. The best television show in the US at the moment is The Americans, a spy thriller about the tense final stages of the cold war.
The series revolves around a couple of Soviet spies in their late 30s who by day live a humdrum suburban life of school runs and pot roast with the neighbours – and by night bug the secretary of defence’s home, bump off CIA agents and break into congressional offices.
Even before Vladimir Putin, the former KGB lieutenant colonel who now runs Russia, got his tentacles into Ukraine, there was already a whiff of cold war nostalgia in the air. It started with a round-up of Russian spies in US cities four years ago and continued with the on-camera arrest last year in Moscow of an alleged CIA spy wearing a daft blond wig and carrying three pairs of sunglasses. The Edward Snowden saga, with his dramatic flight to Russia, has added to the aura.