KGB agent receives honour in UK

A former KGB colonel has been appointed a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George by the UK in the Queen's Birthday Honours list. Oleg Gordievsky received the award for services to the security of the United Kingdom.

Mr Gordievsky was the most high ranking Soviet spy to defect to the West. In the early 1980s, he passed information to the British while he was working as KGB bureau chief in London.

His status as a double agent was discovered in 1985 and he was sentenced to death, but he managed to flee from the USSR.

Now Oleg Gordievsky permanently lives in the UK.

The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is the sixth most prestigious honour in Britain.