Snowden 'Has Blood On His Hands' And His Leaks Forced British Spies To Withdraw From Russia, China

Due to threats of exposure in "hostile" countries such as Russia and China, the British MI6 secret service had to withdraw its field agents. The series of events was caused by earlier NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, according to rt.

Both Moscow and Beijing managed to crack top-secret encrypted documents from Snowden and also learnt MI6's techniques.

Unnamed officials in Prime Minister David Cameron's office, the Home Office and national security services, were mentioned by the media too. Prime Minister Cameron's official agreed that he knew of "no evidence of anyone being harmed," even though Britain did not get the information that was wanted, according to dailymail.

"It is the case that the Russians and Chinese have information. It has meant agents have had to be moved and that knowledge of how we operate has stopped us getting vital information," the Sunday Times was told.

Yet, a senior British official charged that Snowden had "blood on his hands." Russia and China will be perusing Snowden's material "for years to come," so that they are able to pick up clues to identify potential agents, said a British intelligence source.

"Snowden has done incalculable damage," he pointed out. The "evacuation of agents was a forced necessity because otherwise they would have been identified and killed."

The fact that Russia and China got access to Snowden's material turned out to be a "huge strategic setback" harming Britain, America and other NATO member states, said Sir David Omand, the former director of GCHQ.

Snowden created a lot of harm, "far greater than what has been admitted," said a US intelligence source.

He wrote to a former US Senator in July 2013, in which he pointed out that he was careful "to teach our people at DIA how to keep such information from being compromised even in the highest threat counter-intelligence environments (i.e. China)."

"No intelligence service---not even our own---has the capacity to compromise the secrets I continue to protect," he added.