A Russian actor has been given a posthumous Federal Security Services (FSB) award for the best role portraying intelligence officer Stirlitz, Russia`s equivalent to James Bond.

The FSB, formally known as the KGB, awards the prize annually, and the ceremony took place this year at the organization`s headquarters building in downtown Moscow.

Russian legendary actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov, who played a Soviet spy working under the cover of an SS colonel in the still immensely popular Soviet spy serial 17 Moments of Spring, died in early December at the age of 81 of a heart attack.

Tikhonov is better known in the West as Prince Andrei in the Oscar-winning 1967 adaptation of Leo Tolstoy`s War and Peace epic.
sections: Culture