Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "GRU (Russian Federation)" in English language version.
Gen Korabelnikov had been the head of military intelligence for 12 years and was a four-star general. Analysts say the 63-year-old was one of the main opponents of the planned military reforms, which could see the Russian armed forces shrink from 1.3 million serving men and women to one million. The majority of those cuts would come from the officer corps, which could see the loss of around 200,000 posts, including many generals. Some of the proposed reforms were said to have included the disbanding of several GRU-controlled army special forces (Spetsnaz) brigades and the redistribution of the command of some GRU structures to the SVR. Gen Korabelnikov is reported to have submitted his resignation in protest last November.
The Russian operator of Center S was the Osnaz GRU, responsible for radio electronic intelligence within Russia's Armed Forces. Although not much is known about this unit, its logos can be seen below. "Части особого назначения" – Osnaz GRU and "Военная радиоэлектронная разведка" – Military Radio Electronic Intelligence.
CIT also published screenshots from the Instagram page of Ilya Gorelykh, who it said had served in Russia's GRU special forces in the past [...] In late October 2015, it showed he had uploaded pictures from Aleppo, one of which showed him holding an assault rifle while wearing civilian clothes. Another image of him posing in camouflage with three other armed men was apparently taken in Homs.
Speaking on a panel at the Aspen Security Forum on Thursday, Tom Burt, Microsoft's vice president for customer security and trust, said that his team had discovered a spear-phishing campaign targeting three candidates running for election in 2018. Analysts traced them to a group Microsoft has nicknamed Strontium, which is closely tracked by every major threat intelligence company and is widely accepted to be run by the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency.
Initial media reports said up to four Russian Embassy staff had been removed from a list of embassy and diplomatic staff recognized by Canada. CBC News has confirmed that two have had their credentials revoked since news broke of the naval officer's arrest, while two diplomats left the country a month or more before the arrest this week of Canadian Sub.-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle.
Georgia's counter-intelligence service arrested four Russian military intelligence (GRU – Glavnoye Razvedovatelnoye Upravlenie) officers and eleven citizens of Georgia who were cooperating with Russian intelligence services, Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said on 27 September [...] He said that two Russian intelligence operatives were arrested in Tbilisi – GRU colonel Alexander Sava, who was allegedly the chief of the group operating in Georgia, and Dimitri Kazantsev. Two others – Alexander Zavgorodny and Alexander Baranov – were arrested in Batumi, the Georgian Interior Minister said.
A Tbilisi city court 29 September ordered two Russian officers arrested in the Georgian capital, Dmitri Kazantsyev and Alexander Savva, and seven Georgian citizens to be held in pre-trial detention. The Russian consul in Georgia, Valeri Vasiliyev, told Rustavi-2 television that a lawyer for the officers had not been allowed into the courtroom. The Georgian Interior Ministry did not immediately comment on the allegation. The court also passed the same ruling for Konstantin Pichugin, who has been accused of espionage, but who is believed to be inside Russia's regional military headquarters, which remained surrounded by police for a second day. Moscow has refused to surrender Pichugin.
Martin M. reportedly served in peacekeeping missions in the Golan Heights and Cyprus before being posted at one of the Austrian Armed Forces' two headquarters, located in the western city of Salzburg. It was around that time, say prosecutors, that the unnamed man began spying for Russia. Starting in 1992, he was in regular contact with his Russian handler, who was known to him only as "Yuri".
On Friday, 19 March, the Bulgarian government confirmed the BNT report, saying that six Bulgarian citizens had been charged with espionage on behalf of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, known commonly as GRU. The GRU is Russia's foremost military intelligence agency. The six alleged spies reportedly gave Moscow secrets about Bulgarian military affairs, as well as information concerning the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU).
At some point in the video, the seal of Syrian intelligence is clearly visible, placed next to the seal of the GRU's 6th Directorate, the branch of Russian military intelligence that is tasked with collecting signals intelligence (SIGINT).
'Непонятно, куда исчезло слово "разведывательное" – Главное разведывательное управление, надо бы восстановить', – добавил Путин [...]
The GRU is Russia's largest security service. It deploys six times more officers in foreign countries than the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), which is the successor of the First Main Directorate of the KGB. Moreover, 25,000 spetsnaz troops are directly subordinated to the GRU, whereas the KGB's various successor-organizations have been deprived of their own military formations since 1991.
In a surprise move, the Russian Defense Ministry assigned security responsibility for its team of military engineers in Lebanon to two detachments of Chechen troops [...] The East and West battalions of Chechen troops are controlled by the Russian military intelligence (GRU) and do not report directly to the Chechen government.
Artem Zinchenko, a Russian citizen legally resident in Estonia since 2013, was convicted on 8 May of espionage for Russia's GRU military intelligence organisation. Recruited in 2009 and arrested in January 2017, Zinchenko was sentenced to five years for spying on locations, equipment, and manoeuvres of Estonian and NATO forces and critical infrastructure.
Hagisaki told the Tokyo District Court that he handed the MSDF documents to Viktor Bogatenkov, 44, in violation of the SDF Law. Bogatenkov, who reportedly is an agent of the Russian intelligence agency GRU, was with Hagisaki when he was arrested but refused to submit to questioning and returned to Moscow two days later.
Aleksei MORENETS. Evgenii SEREBRIAKOV. Note that their passport numbers differ from each other by only one digit. Oleg SOTNIKOV. Aleksey MININ
We believe that Russia's operation in Syria is a "hybrid war", not unlike the one seen in Ukraine. Apart from the airstrikes, Russia provides Assad forces with surface-to-surface rocket systems, combat vehicles, equipment, advisors, artillery support and spotters. More importantly, recently there have been more and more reports of Russian soldiers, vehicles and "volunteers" being spotted close to the frontlines.
The station is located in the Maritime Province of the Russian Far East near the tiny village of Andreyevka (Google Earth transliterates the name as Andreevka) at the following geographic coordinates: 44-30-30N 133-28-28E. [...] Built during the mid-1970s by the Soviets, a former senior NSA official mentioned it to me in the late 1980s as being "the biggest and baddest of the Sov's SIGINT stations". At the station's peak during the Cold War, it was jointly manned by several hundred KGB and GRU (Soviet military intelligence) SIGINTers. Today, the station is owned and operated solely by the GRU, and it would appear that the station has not been upgraded with new equipment in quite some time.
Andreyevka SATCOM Station: 44-30-30N 133-28-28E Some of these stations are still apparently active (the largest of which is the Andreyevka station near Vladivostok), although to what degree they are still working COMSAT targets cannot be determined from imagery available on Google Maps.
The electronic intelligence was gathered, according to the report, by a Russian listening station at Hmemim Airport near Latakia, Syria, operated by the Sixth Directorate of GRU military intelligence.
Allegations that five Russian diplomats expelled from Moldova last month recruited fighters for the Moscow-backed separatists in Ukraine were "idle gossip", the RIA news agency quoted a deputy Russian foreign minister as saying on Tuesday. Grigory Karasin made the comment shortly after Reuters published an exclusive report citing Moldovan government and diplomatic sources as saying that the five were ejected because of their alleged activities as undercover officers with the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU.
President Dmitry Medvedev sacked Russia's most powerful intelligence chief Friday in a move that underscores strained ties with some of the military top brass over a Kremlin-backed reform of the armed forces. The Kremlin said Medvedev had signed a decree to dismiss General Valentin Korabelnikov, who has directed Russia's military intelligence service since 1997.
In October 2014, the Free Syrian Army sacked a Russian listening post in Tel al-Hara, south of the Quneitra border crossing with Israel. Its location was key. A YouTube video showed a Syrian officer giving the rebels a guided tour of the office building attached to the facility. Documents hanging on the wall, in both Arabic and Russian, including the symbols for Syrian intelligence and 6th Directorate of Russia's military intelligence agency (GRU), and photos showed spies from both countries hard at work deciphering intercepts. Maps displayed rebel positions; they also showed coordinates of Israel Defense Force units.
Also known as APT28, Sofacy, Pawn Storm and Strontium—Microsoft's preferred moniker—Fancy Bear has been conducting cyber espionage since at least 2007, breaching NATO, Obama's White House, a French television station, the World Anti-Doping Agency and countless NGOs, and militaries and civilian agencies in Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus.
The Harper government has expelled staff at Russia's embassy in the wake of charges filed against a Canadian military intelligence officer for allegedly passing secrets to a foreign power, The Globe and Mail has learned. [...] A Russian embassy official acknowledged the following three staffers have recently left Canada, saying, however, that all departures were routine: Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry V. Fedorchatenko, assistant defence attaché. Konstantin Kolpakov, attaché. Mikhail Nikiforov, with the administrative and technical staff. The embassy did not provide a clear explanation for the fourth name now gone from Canada's official list of diplomatic, consular and foreign government representatives: Tatiana Steklova, who had been described as "administrative and technical staff".
The Swiss daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger reported that the men were carrying equipment that could be used to break into the Spiez laboratory's IT network when they were seized.
Sulim Yamadayev: heads 1000 strong East battalion, controlled by the Chief Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian military. Dislikes Kadyrov [...] Said Magomed Kakiev: commander of 900-strong "West" battalion, also under GRU control. Dislikes Kadyrov.
Zinchenko has lived in Estonia on a residence permit since 2013. The Estonian court determined that he was recruited by Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) in 2009, and spent the next four years collecting information about troop movements in Estonia, and about objects of national importance. [...] Zinchenko reportedly passed sensitive information to members of the GRU on multiple occasions, both by means of special communication and in person, on visits to Saint Petersburg.
Unlike its predecessor, a drab, redbrick monolith nicknamed the Aquarium, the new GRU complex is a futuristic glass-clad and bulletproof structure that bears more than a passing resemblance to the London headquarters of Britain's MI6 [...] The complex, whose construction began in 2003, cost 9.5 billion rubles ($357 million) to build, and incorporates an area of 70,000 square meters.
GRU commando units operate in the armed forces to provide field intelligence and carry out special operations, such as the penetration and elimination of enemy units. The military actively employs GRU commandoes in Chechnya, where they have proven to be about the most able of all military units. More than 300 commandos, intelligence officers and other GRU personnel have died in fighting in Chechnya, Korabelnikov said.
Top Russian military officials, including figures from the GRU military intelligence service, had already visited Qamishli, it added.
The GRU is Russia's largest security service. It deploys six times more officers in foreign countries than the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), which is the successor of the First Main Directorate of the KGB. Moreover, 25,000 spetsnaz troops are directly subordinated to the GRU, whereas the KGB's various successor-organizations have been deprived of their own military formations since 1991.
President Dmitry Medvedev sacked Russia's most powerful intelligence chief Friday in a move that underscores strained ties with some of the military top brass over a Kremlin-backed reform of the armed forces. The Kremlin said Medvedev had signed a decree to dismiss General Valentin Korabelnikov, who has directed Russia's military intelligence service since 1997.
Unlike its predecessor, a drab, redbrick monolith nicknamed the Aquarium, the new GRU complex is a futuristic glass-clad and bulletproof structure that bears more than a passing resemblance to the London headquarters of Britain's MI6 [...] The complex, whose construction began in 2003, cost 9.5 billion rubles ($357 million) to build, and incorporates an area of 70,000 square meters.
Gen Korabelnikov had been the head of military intelligence for 12 years and was a four-star general. Analysts say the 63-year-old was one of the main opponents of the planned military reforms, which could see the Russian armed forces shrink from 1.3 million serving men and women to one million. The majority of those cuts would come from the officer corps, which could see the loss of around 200,000 posts, including many generals. Some of the proposed reforms were said to have included the disbanding of several GRU-controlled army special forces (Spetsnaz) brigades and the redistribution of the command of some GRU structures to the SVR. Gen Korabelnikov is reported to have submitted his resignation in protest last November.
The station is located in the Maritime Province of the Russian Far East near the tiny village of Andreyevka (Google Earth transliterates the name as Andreevka) at the following geographic coordinates: 44-30-30N 133-28-28E. [...] Built during the mid-1970s by the Soviets, a former senior NSA official mentioned it to me in the late 1980s as being "the biggest and baddest of the Sov's SIGINT stations". At the station's peak during the Cold War, it was jointly manned by several hundred KGB and GRU (Soviet military intelligence) SIGINTers. Today, the station is owned and operated solely by the GRU, and it would appear that the station has not been upgraded with new equipment in quite some time.
Andreyevka SATCOM Station: 44-30-30N 133-28-28E Some of these stations are still apparently active (the largest of which is the Andreyevka station near Vladivostok), although to what degree they are still working COMSAT targets cannot be determined from imagery available on Google Maps.
The Harper government has expelled staff at Russia's embassy in the wake of charges filed against a Canadian military intelligence officer for allegedly passing secrets to a foreign power, The Globe and Mail has learned. [...] A Russian embassy official acknowledged the following three staffers have recently left Canada, saying, however, that all departures were routine: Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry V. Fedorchatenko, assistant defence attaché. Konstantin Kolpakov, attaché. Mikhail Nikiforov, with the administrative and technical staff. The embassy did not provide a clear explanation for the fourth name now gone from Canada's official list of diplomatic, consular and foreign government representatives: Tatiana Steklova, who had been described as "administrative and technical staff".
Initial media reports said up to four Russian Embassy staff had been removed from a list of embassy and diplomatic staff recognized by Canada. CBC News has confirmed that two have had their credentials revoked since news broke of the naval officer's arrest, while two diplomats left the country a month or more before the arrest this week of Canadian Sub.-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle.
Zinchenko has lived in Estonia on a residence permit since 2013. The Estonian court determined that he was recruited by Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) in 2009, and spent the next four years collecting information about troop movements in Estonia, and about objects of national importance. [...] Zinchenko reportedly passed sensitive information to members of the GRU on multiple occasions, both by means of special communication and in person, on visits to Saint Petersburg.
A Tbilisi city court 29 September ordered two Russian officers arrested in the Georgian capital, Dmitri Kazantsyev and Alexander Savva, and seven Georgian citizens to be held in pre-trial detention. The Russian consul in Georgia, Valeri Vasiliyev, told Rustavi-2 television that a lawyer for the officers had not been allowed into the courtroom. The Georgian Interior Ministry did not immediately comment on the allegation. The court also passed the same ruling for Konstantin Pichugin, who has been accused of espionage, but who is believed to be inside Russia's regional military headquarters, which remained surrounded by police for a second day. Moscow has refused to surrender Pichugin.
Georgia's counter-intelligence service arrested four Russian military intelligence (GRU – Glavnoye Razvedovatelnoye Upravlenie) officers and eleven citizens of Georgia who were cooperating with Russian intelligence services, Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said on 27 September [...] He said that two Russian intelligence operatives were arrested in Tbilisi – GRU colonel Alexander Sava, who was allegedly the chief of the group operating in Georgia, and Dimitri Kazantsev. Two others – Alexander Zavgorodny and Alexander Baranov – were arrested in Batumi, the Georgian Interior Minister said.
Hagisaki told the Tokyo District Court that he handed the MSDF documents to Viktor Bogatenkov, 44, in violation of the SDF Law. Bogatenkov, who reportedly is an agent of the Russian intelligence agency GRU, was with Hagisaki when he was arrested but refused to submit to questioning and returned to Moscow two days later.
Aleksei MORENETS. Evgenii SEREBRIAKOV. Note that their passport numbers differ from each other by only one digit. Oleg SOTNIKOV. Aleksey MININ
Sulim Yamadayev: heads 1000 strong East battalion, controlled by the Chief Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian military. Dislikes Kadyrov [...] Said Magomed Kakiev: commander of 900-strong "West" battalion, also under GRU control. Dislikes Kadyrov.
GRU commando units operate in the armed forces to provide field intelligence and carry out special operations, such as the penetration and elimination of enemy units. The military actively employs GRU commandoes in Chechnya, where they have proven to be about the most able of all military units. More than 300 commandos, intelligence officers and other GRU personnel have died in fighting in Chechnya, Korabelnikov said.
In a surprise move, the Russian Defense Ministry assigned security responsibility for its team of military engineers in Lebanon to two detachments of Chechen troops [...] The East and West battalions of Chechen troops are controlled by the Russian military intelligence (GRU) and do not report directly to the Chechen government.
In October 2014, the Free Syrian Army sacked a Russian listening post in Tel al-Hara, south of the Quneitra border crossing with Israel. Its location was key. A YouTube video showed a Syrian officer giving the rebels a guided tour of the office building attached to the facility. Documents hanging on the wall, in both Arabic and Russian, including the symbols for Syrian intelligence and 6th Directorate of Russia's military intelligence agency (GRU), and photos showed spies from both countries hard at work deciphering intercepts. Maps displayed rebel positions; they also showed coordinates of Israel Defense Force units.
At some point in the video, the seal of Syrian intelligence is clearly visible, placed next to the seal of the GRU's 6th Directorate, the branch of Russian military intelligence that is tasked with collecting signals intelligence (SIGINT).
The Russian operator of Center S was the Osnaz GRU, responsible for radio electronic intelligence within Russia's Armed Forces. Although not much is known about this unit, its logos can be seen below. "Части особого назначения" – Osnaz GRU and "Военная радиоэлектронная разведка" – Military Radio Electronic Intelligence.
The electronic intelligence was gathered, according to the report, by a Russian listening station at Hmemim Airport near Latakia, Syria, operated by the Sixth Directorate of GRU military intelligence.
CIT also published screenshots from the Instagram page of Ilya Gorelykh, who it said had served in Russia's GRU special forces in the past [...] In late October 2015, it showed he had uploaded pictures from Aleppo, one of which showed him holding an assault rifle while wearing civilian clothes. Another image of him posing in camouflage with three other armed men was apparently taken in Homs.
We believe that Russia's operation in Syria is a "hybrid war", not unlike the one seen in Ukraine. Apart from the airstrikes, Russia provides Assad forces with surface-to-surface rocket systems, combat vehicles, equipment, advisors, artillery support and spotters. More importantly, recently there have been more and more reports of Russian soldiers, vehicles and "volunteers" being spotted close to the frontlines.
Top Russian military officials, including figures from the GRU military intelligence service, had already visited Qamishli, it added.
