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There's a little bit of James Bond, spooks, John Le Carrey, to today's episode of the news agents,

with the news that three suspected Russian spies

have been arrested in the UK.

They haven't been arrested today.

It's just the disclosure of their rest has come today from the BBC.

Actually, they were put in prison back in February of this year, but it's only now that we've learnt about them.

So who are they? What were they doing? How long have they been here? Are they the tip of an iceberg?

Is there a much wider network of Russian spies operating almost freely in the UK?

And should we expect more to come? Welcome to the newsagents.

The newsagents. It's John. And in the absence of any other news agents, we've got a proper

former agent today, the former head of the Russian desk at MI6, who's going to take us

through what is going on in London with the disclosure of these arrests. We're also going to be

looking at Afghanistan two years on since the Taliban came back to power and what that means

for women and young girls.

But we start with the murky news that three suspected Russian spies are now in detention.

Now, we are used to hearing about Russian diplomats having been expelled from London because of undiplomatic behaviour, quote, unquote.

We're also used to British diplomats being kicked out of Russia because they have engaged in

activities that the Russian state would say were incompatible with their position there as foreign office representatives.

What is exceptionally rare is hearing that people who have been living in plain sight,

integrated into British society, actually turn out to be agents of the Russian state. But that's what we're being told today from the BBC

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