Victor Madeira, an expert on Soviet and Russian intelligence at the institute for Statecraft, estimates that there are between 280,000 to 480,000 people in the GRU, 387,000 people in the FSB; and, 13,000 people in the SVR. In total, therefore, he estimates there are between 680,000 and 880,000 people in these three agencies alone. For means of comparison, the uK has just 16,868 people devoted to intelligence and security across all of its seven agencies.
wow. that explains a lot