Russia's systemic failures, significant as they are, will never be enough to displace their status as one of, if not, the best foreign intelligence operators. At least, not as long they're the Russian Federation.

That's not because they're magic, smarter, or genetically predisposed to being great spies. It's a function, or symptom, of their empire and how they cobbeled it together with so many diverse and divergent ethnic groups, cultures, and religions.

America is a melting pot that forms a singular monoculture, more or less, but Russia is literally different nations stitched together from Europe to the opposite end of the Asian continent. It's been kept that way because of immense effort of their internal security services.

Their entire empire is held together in large part due to them mass producing people with the same skill sets required for covert foreign intelligence work, so it's not really unsurprising why they excell at it, and will continue to for the foreseeable future.