GRU
Encyclopedia
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence
directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
(formerly the Soviet Army
General Staff of the Soviet Union
). GRU is the English
transliteration of the Russian
acronym ГРУ, which stands for "Главное Разведывательное Управление", meaning Main Intelligence Directorate. The official full name translation is II Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Other name, GRU GSh (GRU Generalnovo Shtaba, i.e. "GRU of the General Staff").
The GRU is Russia's largest foreign intelligence agency. In 1997 it deployed six times as many agents in foreign countries as the SVR
, which is the KGB
intelligence successor. It also commanded 25,000 Spetsnaz troops
in 1997.
The current GRU Director is Lieutenant General
Alexander Shlyakhturov
.
, who was then the civilian overseer of the Red Army; it was originally known as the Registration Directorate (Registrupravlenie, or RU). Simon Aralov
was its first head. In his history of the early years of the GRU, Raymond W. Leonard writes:
, particularly the collection of intelligence of military or political significance from sources outside the Soviet Union. The GRU operated residencies all over the world, along with the SIGINT (signals intelligence) station in Lourdes, Cuba
, and throughout the former Soviet
bloc countries, especially in Lithuania
, Latvia
, and Estonia
.
The first head of the GRU was Janis Karlovich Berzin, a Latvian Communist and former member of the Cheka
, who remained in the post until 28 November 1937, when he was arrested and subsequently liquidated during Joseph Stalin
's purges
.
The GRU was well-known in the Soviet government for its fierce independence from the rival "internal intelligence organizations
", such as NKVD
and KGB
. At the time of the GRU's creation, Lenin infuriated the Cheka
(predecessor of the KGB) by ordering it not to interfere with the GRU's operations. Nonetheless, the Cheka infiltrated the GRU in 1919. This planted the seed for a fierce rivalry between the two agencies, which were both engaged in espionage, and was even more intense than the rivalry between the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and Central Intelligence Agency
in America would be in a future time.
The existence of the GRU was not publicized during the Soviet era, although documents concerning it became available in the West in the late 1920s and it was mentioned in the 1931 memoirs of the first OGPU defector, Georges Agabekov, and described in detail in the 1939 autobiography (I Was Stalin's Agent) of Walter Krivitsky
, the most senior Red Army intelligence officer ever to defect. It became widely known in Russia, and the West
outside the narrow confines of the intelligence community
, during perestroika
, in part thanks to the writings of "Viktor Suvorov
" (Vladimir Rezun), a GRU agent who defected to Britain
in 1978, and wrote about his experiences in the Soviet military and intelligence services. According to Suvorov, even the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union couldn't enter GRU headquarters without going through a security screening.
The GRU is still a very important part of the Russian Federation's intelligence services, especially since it was never split up like the KGB was. The KGB was dissolved after aiding a failed coup in 1991
against the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
. It has since been divided into the Foreign Intelligence Service
(SVR) and the Federal Security Service (FSB).
: "...Though sometimes compared to the US Defense Intelligence Agency
, [the GRU's] activities encompass those performed by nearly all joint US military intelligence agencies as well as other national US organizations. The GRU gathers human intelligence
through military attaches and foreign agents. It also maintains significant signals intelligence (SIGINT
) and imagery reconnaissance (IMINT
) and satellite imagery capabilities." GRU Space Intelligence Directorate has put more than 130 SIGINT satellites into orbit. GRU and KGB SIGINT network employed about 350,000 specialists.
According to GRU defector Kalanbe , "Though most Americans do not realize it, America is penetrated by Russian military intelligence to the extent that arms caches lie in wait for use by Russian special forces". He also described a possibility that compact tactical nuclear weapons known as "suitcase bomb
s" are hidden in the US and noted that "the most sensitive activity of the GRU is gathering intelligence on American leaders, and there is only one purpose for this intelligence: targeting information for spetsnaz
(special forces) assassination squads [in the event of war]". The American leaders will be easily assassinated using the "suitcase bomb
s", according to Lunev. GRU is "one of the primary instructors of terrorists worldwide" according to Lunev Terrorist Shamil Basayev
reportedly worked for this organization.
US Congressman Curt Weldon
supported claims by Lunev but noted that Lunev had "exaggerated things" according to the FBI. Searches of the areas identified by Lunev - who admits he never planted any weapons in the US - have been conducted, "but law-enforcement officials have never found such weapons caches, with or without portable nuclear weapons."
During the 2006 Georgian-Russian espionage controversy
, four officers working for the GRU Alexander Savva, Dmitry Kazantsev, Aleksey Zavgorodny and Alexander Baranov were arrested by the Counter-Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia and were accused of espionage
and sabotage
. This spy network was managed from Armenia by GRU Colonel Anatoly Sinitsin, who also masterminded the terrorist act in the town of Gori in central Georgia on 1 February 2005. A few days later the arrested officers were handed over to Russia through the OSCE. .
GRU detachments from Chechnya
were transferred to Lebanon
independently of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
after the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
"to improve Russia’s image in the Arab world", according to Sergei Ivanov
. Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev
was assassinated by two GRU officers. GRU officers have also been accused of creating criminal death squads.
and Vladislav Surkov
, members of the Vladimir Putin
administration reportedly served in GRU. Two Chechen former warlords
Said-Magomed Kakiev
and Sulim Yamadayev
are commanders of Special Battalions Vostok and Zapad
("East" and "West") that are controlled by the GRU. Each battalion included close to a thousand fighters, until their disbandment in 2008.
, wrote Treason, an account of the experiences of former GRU colonel Vyacheslav Baranov. Baranov had been recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) and agreed to spy for them, but was betrayed to the Russians by a mole
in either the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) or the CIA and spent five years in prison before being released. The identity of the mole remains unknown to this day, although speculation has mounted that it could have been Robert Hanssen
.
Vladimir Semichastny
Military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....
directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the military staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. It is the central organ of the Armed Forces Administration and oversees operational management of the armed forces under the Russian Ministry of Defence.The staff is...
(formerly the Soviet Army
Soviet Army
The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...
General Staff of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
). GRU is the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
transliteration of the Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
acronym ГРУ, which stands for "Главное Разведывательное Управление", meaning Main Intelligence Directorate. The official full name translation is II Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Other name, GRU GSh (GRU Generalnovo Shtaba, i.e. "GRU of the General Staff").
The GRU is Russia's largest foreign intelligence agency. In 1997 it deployed six times as many agents in foreign countries as the SVR
Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service is Russia's primary external intelligence agency. The SVR is the successor of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB since December 1991...
, which is the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
intelligence successor. It also commanded 25,000 Spetsnaz troops
Spetsnaz GRU
The Spetsnaz GRU, or Russian army special forces, are the original Spetsnaz and are generally considered the best trained and experienced units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, as evidenced by both their seniority among the Special Forces and their...
in 1997.
The current GRU Director is Lieutenant General
Lieutenant General
Lieutenant General is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages where the title of Lieutenant General was held by the second in command on the battlefield, who was normally subordinate to a Captain General....
Alexander Shlyakhturov
Alexander Shlyakhturov
Lieutenant General Vasil'evich Shlyakhturov is a Russian military officer.Shlyakhturov was appointed head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff, Russia's largest intelligence agency, on 24 April 2009. Prior to this Shlyakhturov had served as first deputy to the...
.
History
The GRU was created on October 21, 1918 under the sponsorship of Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, who was then the civilian overseer of the Red Army; it was originally known as the Registration Directorate (Registrupravlenie, or RU). Simon Aralov
Simon Aralov
Semyon Ivanovich Aralov was the first head of the Soviet Red Army Intelligence Directorate and subsequently had a career in the Soviet diplomatic service....
was its first head. In his history of the early years of the GRU, Raymond W. Leonard writes:
It was given the task of handling all military intelligence
"As originally established, the Registration Department was not directly subordinate to the General Staff (at the time called the Red Army Field Staff — Polevoi Shtab). Administratively, it was the Third Department of the Field Staff's Operations Directorate. In July 1920, the RU was made the second of four main departments in the Operations Directorate. Until 1921, it was usually called the Registraupr (Registration Department). That year, following the Soviet-Polish War, it was elevated in status to become the Second (Intelligence) Directorate of the Red Army Staff, and was thereafter known as the Razvedupr. This probably resulted from its new primary peacetime responsibilities as the main source of foreign intelligence for the Soviet leadership. As part of a major re-organization of the Red Army, sometime in 1925 or 1926 the RU became the Fourth (Intelligence) Directorate of the Red Army Staff, and was thereafter also known simply as the "Fourth Department." Throughout most of the interwar period, the men and women who worked for Red Army Intelligence called it either the Fourth Department, the Intelligence Service, the Razvedupr, or the RU.[...] As a result of the re-organization [in 1926], carried out in part to break up Trotsky's hold on the army, the Fourth Department seems to have been placed directly under the control of the State Defense Council (Gosudarstvennaia komissiia oborony, or GKO), the successor of the RVSR. Thereafter its analysis and reports went directly to the GKO and Politburo, even apparently bypassing the Red Army Staff."
Military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....
, particularly the collection of intelligence of military or political significance from sources outside the Soviet Union. The GRU operated residencies all over the world, along with the SIGINT (signals intelligence) station in Lourdes, Cuba
Lourdes SIGINT Station
The Lourdes SIGINT facility, located near Havana, Cuba, was the largest facility of its kind operated by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service or FIS, outside of Russia. Located less than from Key West, the facility covered . Construction began in July 1962...
, and throughout the former Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
bloc countries, especially in Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, and Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
.
The first head of the GRU was Janis Karlovich Berzin, a Latvian Communist and former member of the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
, who remained in the post until 28 November 1937, when he was arrested and subsequently liquidated during Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's purges
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
.
The GRU was well-known in the Soviet government for its fierce independence from the rival "internal intelligence organizations
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
", such as NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
and KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
. At the time of the GRU's creation, Lenin infuriated the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
(predecessor of the KGB) by ordering it not to interfere with the GRU's operations. Nonetheless, the Cheka infiltrated the GRU in 1919. This planted the seed for a fierce rivalry between the two agencies, which were both engaged in espionage, and was even more intense than the rivalry between the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
and Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
in America would be in a future time.
The existence of the GRU was not publicized during the Soviet era, although documents concerning it became available in the West in the late 1920s and it was mentioned in the 1931 memoirs of the first OGPU defector, Georges Agabekov, and described in detail in the 1939 autobiography (I Was Stalin's Agent) of Walter Krivitsky
Walter Krivitsky
Walter Germanovich Krivitsky was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact before defecting weeks before the outbreak of World War II....
, the most senior Red Army intelligence officer ever to defect. It became widely known in Russia, and the West
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
outside the narrow confines of the intelligence community
Intelligence community
Intelligence community may refer to* Bangladeshi intelligence community* Croatian intelligence community * Israeli intelligence community* Italian intelligence community, see SISMI...
, during perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
, in part thanks to the writings of "Viktor Suvorov
Viktor Suvorov
Viktor Suvorov is the pen name for Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun , a former Soviet and now British writer of Russian and Ukrainian descent who writes primarily in Russian, as well as a former Soviet military intelligence spy who defected to the UK...
" (Vladimir Rezun), a GRU agent who defected to Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1978, and wrote about his experiences in the Soviet military and intelligence services. According to Suvorov, even the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union couldn't enter GRU headquarters without going through a security screening.
The GRU is still a very important part of the Russian Federation's intelligence services, especially since it was never split up like the KGB was. The KGB was dissolved after aiding a failed coup in 1991
Soviet coup attempt of 1991
The 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt , also known as the August Putsch or August Coup , was an attempt by a group of members of the Soviet Union's government to take control of the country from Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev...
against the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
. It has since been divided into the Foreign Intelligence Service
Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service is Russia's primary external intelligence agency. The SVR is the successor of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB since December 1991...
(SVR) and the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Activities
According to the Federation of American ScientistsFederation of American Scientists
The Federation of American Scientists is a nonpartisan, 501 organization intent on using science and scientific analysis to attempt make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1945 by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs...
: "...Though sometimes compared to the US Defense Intelligence Agency
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency is a member of the Intelligence Community of the United States, and is the central producer and manager of military intelligence for the United States Department of Defense, employing over 16,500 U.S. military and civilian employees worldwide...
, [the GRU's] activities encompass those performed by nearly all joint US military intelligence agencies as well as other national US organizations. The GRU gathers human intelligence
HUMINT
HUMINT, a syllabic abbreviation of the words HUMan INTelligence, refers to intelligence gathering by means of interpersonal contact, as opposed to the more technical intelligence gathering disciplines such as SIGINT, IMINT and MASINT...
through military attaches and foreign agents. It also maintains significant signals intelligence (SIGINT
SIGINT
Signals intelligence is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether between people , whether involving electronic signals not directly used in communication , or combinations of the two...
) and imagery reconnaissance (IMINT
IMINT
Imagery Intelligence , is an intelligence gathering discipline which collects information via satellite and aerial photography. As a means of collecting intelligence, IMINT is a subset of intelligence collection management, which, in turn, is a subset of intelligence cycle management...
) and satellite imagery capabilities." GRU Space Intelligence Directorate has put more than 130 SIGINT satellites into orbit. GRU and KGB SIGINT network employed about 350,000 specialists.
According to GRU defector Kalanbe , "Though most Americans do not realize it, America is penetrated by Russian military intelligence to the extent that arms caches lie in wait for use by Russian special forces". He also described a possibility that compact tactical nuclear weapons known as "suitcase bomb
Suitcase bomb
A suitcase nuke is a tactical nuclear weapon which uses, or is portable enough that it could use, a suitcase as its delivery method. Synonyms include suitcase bomb, backpack nuke, mini-nuke, pocket nuke and snuke....
s" are hidden in the US and noted that "the most sensitive activity of the GRU is gathering intelligence on American leaders, and there is only one purpose for this intelligence: targeting information for spetsnaz
Spetsnaz
Spetsnaz, Specnaz tr: Voyska specialnogo naznacheniya; ) is an umbrella term for any special forces in Russian, literally "force of special purpose"...
(special forces) assassination squads [in the event of war]". The American leaders will be easily assassinated using the "suitcase bomb
Suitcase bomb
A suitcase nuke is a tactical nuclear weapon which uses, or is portable enough that it could use, a suitcase as its delivery method. Synonyms include suitcase bomb, backpack nuke, mini-nuke, pocket nuke and snuke....
s", according to Lunev. GRU is "one of the primary instructors of terrorists worldwide" according to Lunev Terrorist Shamil Basayev
Shamil Basayev
Shamil Salmanovich Basayev was a Chechen militant Islamist and a leader of the Chechen rebel movement.Starting as a field commander in the Transcaucasus, Basayev led guerrilla campaigns against the Russian troops for years, as well as launching mass-hostage takings of civilians, with his goal...
reportedly worked for this organization.
US Congressman Curt Weldon
Curt Weldon
Wayne Curtis "Curt" Weldon is an American politician. He served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 2007, representing the 7th district of Pennsylvania. He was defeated in November 2006 for reelection by Joe Sestak. Weldon was vice-chair of the Armed...
supported claims by Lunev but noted that Lunev had "exaggerated things" according to the FBI. Searches of the areas identified by Lunev - who admits he never planted any weapons in the US - have been conducted, "but law-enforcement officials have never found such weapons caches, with or without portable nuclear weapons."
During the 2006 Georgian-Russian espionage controversy
2006 Georgian-Russian espionage controversy
The 2006 Georgian–Russian espionage controversy began when the Government of Georgia arrested four Russian officers on charges of espionage, on September 27, 2006...
, four officers working for the GRU Alexander Savva, Dmitry Kazantsev, Aleksey Zavgorodny and Alexander Baranov were arrested by the Counter-Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia and were accused of espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
and sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
. This spy network was managed from Armenia by GRU Colonel Anatoly Sinitsin, who also masterminded the terrorist act in the town of Gori in central Georgia on 1 February 2005. A few days later the arrested officers were handed over to Russia through the OSCE. .
GRU detachments from Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...
were transferred to Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
independently of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, was created by the United Nations, with the adoption of Security Council Resolution 425 and 426 on 19 March 1978, to confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon which Israel had invaded five days prior, restore international peace and security,...
after the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War #Other uses|Tammūz]]) and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War , was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon, northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. The principal parties were Hezbollah...
"to improve Russia’s image in the Arab world", according to Sergei Ivanov
Sergei Ivanov
Sergei Borisovich Ivanov is a Russian senior official and statesman. He was Minister of Defence from March 2001 to February 2007, Deputy Prime Minister from November 2005 to February 2007, and the First Deputy Prime Minister from February 2007 to May 2008...
. Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev
Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev
Zelimkhan Abdumuslimovich Yandarbiyev was a Chechen writer and a politician, who served as acting president of the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria between 1996 and 1997...
was assassinated by two GRU officers. GRU officers have also been accused of creating criminal death squads.
Miscellaneous
Chechnya
Dmitry KozakDmitry Kozak
Dmitry Nikolayevich Kozak , is a Russian politician, serving since October 2008 as deputy Prime minister of the Russian Federation....
and Vladislav Surkov
Vladislav Surkov
Vladislav Yuryevich Surkov is a Russian businessman and politician. Currently he is a First Deputy Chief of Staff of the President of the Russian Federation and a top aide to Vladimir Putin. Vladislav Surkov is widely seen as the main ideologist of the Kremlin...
, members of the Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
administration reportedly served in GRU. Two Chechen former warlords
Warlords
Warlords may refer to:* The plural of warlord, a name for a figure who has military authority but not legal authority over a subnational region.* "WARLORDS", the call sign of a United States Navy Helicopter squadron based in Ayase city, Japan....
Said-Magomed Kakiev
Said-Magomed Kakiev
Said-Magomed Shamaevich Kakiyev is the leader of the GRU Spetsnaz Special Battalion West , a pro-Moscow Chechen military force. Inside Chechnya his men are sometimes referred to as the Kakievtsy...
and Sulim Yamadayev
Sulim Yamadayev
Sulim Bekmirzayevich Yamadayev was a Chechen rebel commander from the First Chechen War who had switched sides together with his brothers Dzhabrail, Badrudi, Isa and Ruslan in 1999 during the outbreak of the Second Chechen War. He was de facto commander of the Russian military Special Battalion...
are commanders of Special Battalions Vostok and Zapad
Special Battalions Vostok and Zapad
Special Battalions Vostok and Zapad were two Spetznaz units of Russian military intelligence based in Chechnya. The overwhelming majority of personnel were ethnic Chechens, while the command personnel were mixed Russian and Chechens....
("East" and "West") that are controlled by the GRU. Each battalion included close to a thousand fighters, until their disbandment in 2008.
Baranov
In 2002, Bill Powell, former Moscow bureau chief at NewsweekNewsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, wrote Treason, an account of the experiences of former GRU colonel Vyacheslav Baranov. Baranov had been recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
(CIA) and agreed to spy for them, but was betrayed to the Russians by a mole
Mole (espionage)
A mole is a spy who works for an enemy nation, but whose loyalty ostensibly lies with his own nation's government. In some usage, a mole differs from a defector in that a mole is a spy before gaining access to classified information, while a defector becomes a spy only after gaining access...
in either the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) or the CIA and spent five years in prison before being released. The identity of the mole remains unknown to this day, although speculation has mounted that it could have been Robert Hanssen
Robert Hanssen
Robert Philip Hanssen is a former American FBI agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States for 22 years from 1979 to 2001...
.
Historic agents
- Whittaker ChambersWhittaker ChambersWhittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
, an American journalist and ex-GRU agent who broke with Communism in 1938 - George Koval, a scientist who stole atomic secrets from the Manhattan Project.
- Eugene Franklin Coleman
- Arvid JacobsonArvid JacobsonArvid Jacobson was a Finnish-American Communist who spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s.-Biography:Jacobson was working as a high school teacher in Detroit when, n the fall of 1932, he was recruited to work for the Soviet Military Intelligence by the Comintern agent "Mrs...
- Joseph Milton BernsteinJoseph Milton BernsteinJoseph Milton Bernstein was an American accused of spying for the Soviet Union.-Career:Bernstein allegedly recruited his fellow Communist T.A. Bisson who had stopped working at the Board of Economic Warfare and began working in the Institute of Pacific Relations and in the editorial offices of...
- Robert Bejer(?)(source:the last lie,het laatste leugen,le dernier mensonge(luc pire))
- Boris BukovBoris BukovBoris Yakovlevich Bukov, also Boris Bykov Regiment Commissar was a member of the Communist Party member since 1919. Bykov was head of the underground apparatus with which Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss were connected....
- Lydia StahlLydia StahlLydia Stahl was a secret agent who worked for Soviet Military Intelligence in New York and Paris.She was born Lydia Chkalov in Rostov, in the south of Russia, in 1890. Once the wife of a Tsarist officer, she later married Baron Stahl, a Baltic nobleman, and emigrated to the United States where...
- Robert Osman
- Harold GlasserHarold GlasserHarold Glasser , was an economist in the United States Department of the Treasury and spokesman on the affairs of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration 'throughout its whole life' and he had a 'predominant voice' in determining which countries should receive aid...
- Mary Jane KeeneyMary Jane KeeneyMary Jane Keeney and her husband Philip Olin Keeney were librarians and charter members of the liberal The Progressive Librarians Council. She worked at the Board of Economic Warfare in Washington D.C. during World War II...
and Philip KeeneyPhilip KeeneyPhilip Olin Keeney , and his wife, Mary Jane Keeney, were librarians who became part of the Silvermaster spy ring in the 1940s.Keeney met Mary Jane when both were working as librarians at the University of Michigan in 1929. In 1931, he became head librarian at Montana State University at Missoula... - Hede MassingHede MassingHede Massing, née "Hedwig Tune" was an Austrian actress in Vienna and Berlin, communist, and Soviet intelligence operative in Europe and the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. After the World War II, she defected from the Soviet underground...
- Irving Charles VelsonIrving Charles VelsonIrving Charles Velson was an American who had a long career in the Communist Party of the United States secret apparatus and who allegedly worked for Soviet Military Intelligence . He was the son of Clara Lemlich Shavelson and changed his name to Velson by 1938...
, Brooklyn Navy YardBrooklyn Navy YardThe United States Navy Yard, New York–better known as the Brooklyn Navy Yard or the New York Naval Shipyard –was an American shipyard located in Brooklyn, northeast of the Battery on the East River in Wallabout Basin, a semicircular bend of the river across from Corlear's Hook in Manhattan...
; American Labor PartyAmerican Labor PartyThe American Labor Party was a political party in the United States established in 1936 which was active almost exclusively in the state of New York. The organization was founded by labor leaders and former members of the Socialist Party who had established themselves as the Social Democratic...
candidate for New York State Senate - William Spiegel
- Vincent RenoVincent RenoFranklin Vincent Reno was a mathematician and civilian employee at the United States Army Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland in the 1930s. Reno was a member of the "Karl group" of Soviet spies which was being handled by Whittaker Chambers up until 1938...
- Ward Pigman
- Richard SorgeRichard SorgeRichard Sorge was a German communist and spy who worked for the Soviet Union. He has gained great fame among espionage enthusiasts for his intelligence gathering during World War II. He worked as a journalist in both Germany and Japan, where he was imprisoned for spying and eventually hanged....
- Tanner Greimann
- Adam Priess
GRU "Illegals"
- Boris Devyatkin
- Moishe SternManfred SternManfred Stern was a member of the GRU, Soviet military intelligence. He served as a spy in the United States, as a military advisor in China, and gained fame under his nom de guerre as General Kléber, leader of the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.- Early life :He was born into...
- Joshua Tamer
- Alfred TiltonAlfred TiltonAlfred Tilton was a Latvian who was head of Soviet Military Intelligence in the United States in the late 1920s. He is best remembered for having recruited Latvian-American communist Nicholas Dozenberg to work for the GRU late in 1927....
- Alexander UlanovskyAlexander UlanovskyAlexander Petrovich Ulanovsky was the chief illegal "rezident" for Soviet Military Intelligence , who was rezident the United States from 1931 until 1934 and later, with his family, prisoner in the Soviet gulag.-Background:Born into a Jewish family in Kishinev, , as Izrail...
- Ignacy WitczakIgnacy WitczakIgnacy Witczak was a GRU Illegal officer in the United States during World War II.Witczak's code name with the GRU and as deciphered by the Venona project and other counterintelligence investigations was "R".-Evidence of espionage:...
- Yakov Grigorev
- Vladimir KvachkovVladimir KvachkovVladimir Vasilievich Kvachkov is an ex-colonel of Russian Military Intelligence service GRU, author and politician. He came to prominence after he was arrested and charged with an attempt to murder Russian politician and businessman Anatoly Chubais...
Naval GRU
- Jack FahyJack FahyJack Bradley Fahy was an American government official. He allegedly spied for the Soviet Naval GRU during World War II. Soviet naval intelligence was much smaller than the Soviet army's GRU, and only a fraction of the size of the KGB....
(Naval GRU), Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American AffairsCoordinator of Inter-American AffairsThe Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs was a United States agency promoting inter-American cooperation during the 1940s, especially in commercial and economic areas...
; Board of Economic WarfareBoard of Economic WarfareThe Office of Administrator of Export Control was established in the United States by Presidential Proclamation 2413, July 2, 1940, to administer export licensing provisions of the act of July 2, 1940 . Brigadier General Russell Lamont Maxwell, United States Army, headed up this military entity...
; United States Department of the InteriorUnited States Department of the InteriorThe United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U.S. government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources, and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native... - Edna PattersonEdna PattersonFrancia Yakilnilna Mitynen aka Edna Margaret Patterson was a Soviet citizen born in Australia. Mitynen was an illegal officer of the Naval GRU who was smuggled into the United States in August 1943...
Naval GRU, served in US August 1943 to 1956
Vladimir Semichastny
GRU defectors
- Viktor SuvorovViktor SuvorovViktor Suvorov is the pen name for Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun , a former Soviet and now British writer of Russian and Ukrainian descent who writes primarily in Russian, as well as a former Soviet military intelligence spy who defected to the UK...
(Vladimir Bogdanovich Resun) - Stanislav LunevStanislav LunevStanislav Lunev is a former Soviet military officer, the highest-ranking GRU officer to defect from Russia to the United States.He was born in the family of a Soviet Army officer...
- Oleg PenkovskyOleg PenkovskyOleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, codenamed HERO ; April 23, 1919, Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, Soviet Russia, – May 16, 1963, Soviet Union), was a colonel with Soviet military intelligence in the late 1950s and early 1960s who informed the United Kingdom and the United States about the Soviet Union...
, a GRU officer who played an important role during the Cuban Missile CrisisCuban Missile CrisisThe Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War... - Igor GouzenkoIgor GouzenkoIgor Sergeyevich Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. He defected on September 5, 1945, with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West...
, a GRU cipher clerk who defected in Canada - Walter KrivitskyWalter KrivitskyWalter Germanovich Krivitsky was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact before defecting weeks before the outbreak of World War II....
, a GRU defector who predicted that Joseph StalinJoseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
and Adolf HitlerAdolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
would conclude a Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, found dead in 1941 - Ignace Reiss, a GRU defector who sent a letter of defection to Stalin in July 1937, found dead in September 1937
- Juliet PoyntzJuliet PoyntzJuliet Stuart Poyntz was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution , and a founding member of the Communist Party of the United States . After resigning from active work with the Party, she disappeared in 1937, never to be seen again...
, a founding member of the Communist Party of the United States, allegedly killed for an attempt to defect - Iavor Entchev, a communist member of GRU; defected to United States during the Cold War.
See also
- Farewell DossierFarewell DossierThe Farewell dossier was the collection of documents that Colonel Vladimir Vetrov, a KGB defector , gathered and gave to the French DST in 1981–82, during the Cold War....
- VatutinkiVatutinkiVatutinki is a village in Leninsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, located on the Desna River, south-west of Moscow. Population: The village is the location of a GRU base with Space Intelligence Directorate. It manages the Russian space reconnaissance program in coordination with the Fleet...
- Active measuresActive measuresActive Measures were a form of political warfare conducted by the Soviet security services to influence the course of world events, "in addition to collecting intelligence and producing politically correct assessment of it". Active measures ranged "from media manipulations to special actions...
- SMERSHSMERSHSMERSH was the counter-intelligence agency in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially founded on April 14, 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Joseph Stalin...
- Leopold TrepperLeopold TrepperLeopold Trepper was an organizer of the Soviet spy ring Rote Kapelle prior to and during World War II....
, an organizer of the Soviet spySPYSPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
ring Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra) prior to World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis... - Pavel SudoplatovPavel SudoplatovLieutenant General Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of lieutenant general...
- Nuclear suitcase bombSuitcase bombA suitcase nuke is a tactical nuclear weapon which uses, or is portable enough that it could use, a suitcase as its delivery method. Synonyms include suitcase bomb, backpack nuke, mini-nuke, pocket nuke and snuke....
Further reading
- David M. Glantz. Soviet military intelligence in war. Cass series on Soviet military theory and practice ; 3. London: Cass, 1990. ISBN 0-7146-3374-7, ISBN 0-7146-4076-X
- Raymond W. Leonard. Secret soldiers of the revolution: Soviet military intelligence, 1918-1933. Westport, Conn.; London: Greenwood Press, 1999. ISBN 0-313-30990-6
- Stanislav LunevStanislav LunevStanislav Lunev is a former Soviet military officer, the highest-ranking GRU officer to defect from Russia to the United States.He was born in the family of a Soviet Army officer...
. Through the Eyes of the Enemy: The Autobiography of Stanislav Lunev, Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1998. ISBN 0-89526-390-4 - Viktor SuvorovViktor SuvorovViktor Suvorov is the pen name for Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun , a former Soviet and now British writer of Russian and Ukrainian descent who writes primarily in Russian, as well as a former Soviet military intelligence spy who defected to the UK...
AquariumAquarium (Suvorov)Aquarium is a partly autobiographical description by Viktor Suvorov of the GRU . The account starts in 1969, when Suvorov, as an ordinary tank company commander, is recruited into intelligence analysis by an up-and-coming Lieutenant Colonel...
, 1985, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, ISBN 0-241-11545-0 - Viktor Suvorov Inside Soviet Military Intelligence, 1984, ISBN 0-02-615510-9
- Viktor Suvorov Spetsnaz, 1987, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, ISBN 0-241-11961-8
External links
- Reuters factbox on GRU
- The Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) for new evidence on Soviet espionage in the United States from GRU/KGB archival sources
- History of military intelligence from the Agentura.ru project (in English)
- Information from FAS.org
- Another FAS site
- President Putin visits new GRU headquarters
- GRU High Command and leading GRU officers
- Ivan Ilyichev – Head of GRU
- GRU structure