GRU

GRU Generalnovo Shtaba Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije Гла́вное Разве́дывательное Управле́ние
GRU emblem and sleeve ensign
Agency overview
Formed	1918
Jurisdiction	Government of Russia
Agency Executive	General of the Army Valentin Vladimirovich Korabelnikov, Director

GRU or Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije is the acronym for the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, (formerly the Red Army General Staff of the Soviet Union). GRU is the English transliteration of the Russian acronym ГРУ, which stands for "Гла́вное Разве́дывательное Управле́ние", meaning Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff. The full name is GRU GSh (GRU Generalnovo Shtaba (or "GenShtaba"), i.e. "GRU of the General Staff").

The GRU is Russia's largest intelligence agency. It deploys 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.^[1]

The current GRU Director is General of the Army Valentin Vladimirovich Korabelnikov.

History

The GRU was created in 1918 by the Bolshevik Communist Party under Lenin, and given the task of handling all military intelligence, 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 Stalin's purges.

The GRU was well-known in the Soviet government for its fierce independence from rival power blocs, even the CPSU 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 FBI and CIA in America would be in a future time.

The existence of the GRU was not publicized during the Soviet era. 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 SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service) and the FSB (Federal Security Service).

Activities

According to the Federation of American Scientists: "...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 and imagery reconnaissance and satellite imagery capabilities." [1] GRU Space Intelligence Directorate had put more than 130 SIGINT satellites into orbit. GRU and KGB SIGINT network employed about 350,000 specialists.^[2]

According to GRU defector Stanislav Lunev, "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 bombs" are hidden in the US^[3][4] 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 bombs", according to Lunev.^[3] GRU is "one of the primary instructors of terrorists worldwide" according to Lunev^[3] Terrorist Shamil Basayev reportedly worked for this organization.^[5][6][7]

During the 2006 Georgian-Russian espionage controversy several officers (allegedly working for GRU) were accused by the Georgian authorities of preparations to commit sabotage and terrorist acts such as arson. 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.^[8] Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was assassinated by two GRU officers. GRU officers have also been accused of creating criminal death squads^[9]

Miscellaneous

A GRU Spetsnaz unit prepares for a helicopter mission at Kabul airport in Afghanistan in 1988. Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev.

Chechnya

Dmitry Kozak and Vladislav Surkov from the current Putin administration reportedly served in GRU.[2] Two Chechen former warlords Said-Magomed Kakiev and Sulim Yamadayev are commanders of "West" and "East" battalions that are controlled by GRU (each battalion includes close to a thousand fighters).^[10]

Baranov

In 2002, Bill Powell wrote Treason,^[11] an account of the experiences of former GRU colonel Vyacheslav Baranov. Baranov had been recruited by the CIA and agreed to spy for them, but was betrayed to the Russians by a mole in either the 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.

Historic agents

• Whittaker Chambers, 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 Jacobson
• Joseph Milton Bernstein
• Boris Bukov
• Lydia Stahl,
• Robert Osman
• Harold Glasser
• Mary Jane Keeney and Philip Keeney
• Hede Massing
• Irving Charles Velson, Brooklyn Navy Yard; American Labor Party candidate for New York State Senate
• William Spiegel
• Vincent Reno
• Ward Pigman
• Richard Sorge

GRU "Illegals"

• Boris Devyatkin
• Moishe Stern
• Joshua Tamer
• Alfred Tilton
• Alexander Ulanovsky
• Ignacy Witczak
• Yakov Grigorev

Naval GRU

• Jack Fahy (Naval GRU), Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs; Board of Economic Warfare; United States Department of the Interior
• Edna Patterson Naval GRU, served in US August 1943 to 1956

GRU defectors

• Viktor Suvorov
• Stanislav Lunev
• Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU officer who played an important role during the Cuban Missile Crisis
• Igor Gouzenko, a GRU cipher clerk who defected in Canada
• Walter Krivitsky, a GRU defector who predicted that Stalin and Hitler would conclude a Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact
• Juliet Poyntz, 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 Cold War.

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. Contributions in military studies ; 183. Westport, Conn. ; London : Greenwood Press, 1999. ISBN 0-313-30990-6
• Stanislav Lunev. Through the Eyes of the Enemy: The Autobiography of Stanislav Lunev, Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1998. ISBN 0-89526-390-4
• Viktor Suvorov Aquarium (Аквариум), 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

Fiction

• The GRU appears in and plays a significant plot role in the video game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
• The GRU is noted in the book Deep Six by Clive Cussler.
• The GRU is also noted in the book Tom Clancy's EndWar by David Michaels.

References

External links

• 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

See also

• Farewell Dossier
• Vatutinki
• Active measures
• SMERSH
• Leopold Trepper, an organizer of the Soviet spy ring Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra) prior to World War II
• Pavel Sudoplatov
• Nuclear suitcase bomb