Victor Sheymov in his book Tower of Secrets says those who were marginally successful in their KGB training were assigned to the Russian Orthodox Church. Personally I don’t imagined things have changed much.
Victor Sheymov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Sheymov
Do these KGB priests know karate and how to fire a weapon?
As an Orthodox Christian, I have mixed feelings about the church’s blessing and participation here. In fact, I’m not sure what I think. I know about the communist infiltration and control of the Russian Orthodox Church at its highest levels during the Soviet days. The Soviets also infiltrated and controlled other religious denominations. One issue that gives me some hope that things have changed is the position of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which restored communion with the Moscow Patriarchate a few years ago. ROCOR originally broke with Moscow because of the obvious communist control of the Patriarchate, and it always remained staunchly anti-communist. Over the years, some of the hottest criticism hurled at the Moscow Patriarchate came from ROCOR. ROCOR considered the Romanovs to be saints long before Moscow did. I knew a woman whose father had served in the White Army. Knowing the intransigence of ROCOR over the years, I’d like to think that they wouldn’t have reunited with Moscow if the Russian Church was still dominated by communists.
Whether the Russian Orthodox Church has become (once again) a willing tool of Russian nationalism is another story. I’m up in the air about whether this is always a bad thing. Some of the few voices speaking for the defense of Christian civilization are coming from Eastern Europe, including Russia. Putin at least gives it lip service. Whether this is the goal of current Russian actions in Syria, I have no idea, because I’m having a real hard time getting my mind around exactly what is going on there; who are the black hats and who, if any, are the white hats.