Some newly qualified Russian spies are in hot water after appearing on YouTube – or is it all some sort of elaborate double bluff?

The first rule of spying? Don’t post your name and face online

Name: The FSB.

Age: 21.

Appearance: Blushing.

How come? About 50 of its new recruits are being investigated for celebrating their graduation by renting a fleet of Mercedes, driving wildly around Moscow, being stopped by police and posting pictures and videos of themselves online.

That is embarrassing. I would expect much better from the Federation of Small Businesses. Ah. No. The one I’m talking about is Russia’s Federal Security Service – or Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti.

I think I’ll stick with FSB. Good idea. They’re essentially the new KGB, in charge of spying. They even occupy the old KGB building in Lubyanka Square in Moscow. Vladimir Putin used to be FSB director.

I see. And they’re embarrassed because this kind of triumphalism doesn’t suit the FSB brand? Partly. And because secrecy is a bit of an issue when it comes to spying, and it’s not very secretive to publish your name and photograph on the internet while saying, “Hooray, we’re FSB spies!”

No. Russian media even quote one graduate saying he failed to see “what the big fuss is about”.

I imagine his bosses will explain it shortly. Yes, although this looks bad for them too. After all, they have just trained this band of nincompoops and declared them clever enough to work for the FSB.

Ah. Or maybe this is a cunning plan to make us think that the FSB are useless, when in fact they are geniuses? Maybe. Besides the usual intelligence-gathering and overseas assassinations, they do like to use ingenious methods.

Such as? John Kerry complained to Putin last month about the FSB targeting foreign diplomats and journalists with “home invasion tactics”.

What are they? They’re a way of making people think they’re going mad. Diplomats in Russia have reported coming home to find their furniture rearranged, their remote control missing and their tyres slashed. Or to find that someone has defecated in the toilet and not flushed it.

Ew. Still, I guess the class of 2016 might yet prove useful for these defecation missions? Yeah. I guess they still qualify for that.

Do say: “We’re not spies at all! It was a double bluff! Can’t believe you fell for it.”

Don’t say: “Vladimir Putin gets a lot of stick, but they need strong leadership at the Federation of Small Businesses.”