26 Facts About GRU

Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, formerly the Main Intelligence Directorate, and still commonly known by its previous abbreviation GRU, is the foreign military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

Unlike Russia's other security and intelligence agencies—such as the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Federal Security Service, and the Federal Protective Service, whose heads report directly to the president of Russia —the director of the GRU is subordinate to the Russian military command, reporting to the Minister of Defence and the Chief of the General Staff.

Military intelligence was known for its fierce independence from the rival "internal intelligence organizations", such as the NKVD, and later KGB; however, public statements of Soviet military intelligence veterans state the Fourth Directorate, and later GRU, had always been operationally subordinate to the KGB.

GRU was created under its current name and form by Joseph Stalin in February 1942, less than a year after the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany.

From April 1943 the GRU handled human intelligence exclusively outside the USSR.

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GRU was distinguished for its "closer ties with revolutionary movements and terrorist groups, greater experience with weapons and explosives, and even tougher training for recruits"; new recruits were allegedly shown footage of a traitorous officer being fed into a crematorium alive.

Existence of the GRU was not publicized during the Soviet era, though 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, by Walter Krivitsky, the most senior Red Army intelligence officer ever to defect.

GRU became widely known in Russia, and outside narrow confines of the Western intelligence community, during perestroika, due partly to the writings of "Viktor Suvorov", a GRU officer who defected to Great Britain in 1978 and wrote about his experiences in the Soviet military and intelligence services.

Evidencing its growing strategic profile, in 2006 the GRU moved to a new headquarters complex at Khoroshovskoye Shosse, which cost 9.

GRU underwent severe reductions in funding and personnel following the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, during which it failed to discover the more advanced anti-aircraft weapons obtained by Georgia.

GRU agents were implicated in numerous cyberwarfare operations across the West, including in the U S, France, and Germany.

Sergun's sudden death shortly after the restoration of the GRU's influence led to speculations of foul play by Russian adversaries.

Unit 29155 operatives have been tracked to Switzerland during the time other GRU units hacked the World Anti-Doping Agency and attempted to hack the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons .

Since the mid-1970s the GRU has maintained a satellite communications interception post near Andreyevka, located approximately 80 kilometres from Spassk-Dalny, Primorsky Krai.

GRU received intelligence from Jeffrey Delisle of the Royal Canadian Navy, leading to the expulsion of several Russian Embassy staffers, including the defence attache to Ottawa.

GRU was blackmailed into providing information to GRU handlers.

Viktor Ilyushin, a GRU operative working as an Air Force deputy attache, was expelled from France in 2014 for attempted espionage of the staff of Francois Hollande.

In mid-September 2018 the Swiss press reported that two men allegedly working for the GRU had been arrested in The Hague, the Netherlands in the spring that year, after the Salisbury poisoning incident, for planning to hack the computer systems of the Spiez Laboratory, a Swiss institute analyzing chemical weapon attacks for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons .

In May 2020, Polish journalists, supported by former intelligence officials, accused the GRU of conducting a 700-email bomb threat campaign against Polish schools as part of a hybrid warfare strategy.

Anatoly V Belashkov and Vasily A Bogachyov, thought to be GRU members, were found guilty of the murder by a Qatari criminal court, which said the men had acted under direct orders from the Russian leadership.

GRU officers have been accused of creating criminal death squads.

GRU officials have visited Qamishli, near the border with Turkey.

Spetsnaz GRU were involved in the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and in the War in Donbas.

News media and private cybersecurity firms allege that the GRU hacked the computer networks of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, a key player in the 2020 Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory.

Spetsnaz GRU are involved in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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GRU is the primary military intelligence adviser to the Russian Minister of Defense and to the Russian Chief of the General Staff and to a certain extent answers to the President of Russia if ordered so.