A British intelligence officer who defected to the USSR dies

Intelligence officer George Blake has died, RBC was told in the Foreign Intelligence Service.

Blake was 98 years old. The cause of his death in the SVR was called cardiac arrest.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences on Blake's death. “Colonel Blake was a brilliant professional - a special vitality and courage. Over the years of hard, hard work, he has made a truly invaluable contribution to ensuring strategic parity, maintaining peace on the planet, ”the Kremlin website says.

Blake was a British intelligence officer for MI6. In the 1950s, he went over to the side of the USSR and began to cooperate with the KGB. In 1961, he was discovered by a Polish intelligence officer; in the UK, Blake was sentenced to 42 years in prison. A few years later, he was able to escape from prison in Moscow.