Unidad 29155: El último escándalo del espionaje ruso resuena en Europa: una explosión, dos envenenamientos y agentes de élite | Internacional elpais.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from elpais.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
“These are the guys you send in because you want to break stuff,” said Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian security services.
Here’s a look at the Russian military intelligence unit that has captured the attention of Western intelligence.
Evolution of An Intelligence Unit
The GRU whose official name is the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is not a new entity. It’s been around for decades, operating first in parallel with the KGB and then, after the Soviet breakup, with the KGB successor agencies: the Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service.
Why can’t Europe see that it’s at war with Russia?
Failing to respond adequately to the deterioration of its security serves only to convince Russia that it can continue to attack
23 April 2021 • 6:00pm
Besides news of the ongoing slow-motion murder of Alexey Navalny in prison, and the buildup of Russian troops and armour on the Ukrainian border, this week saw disclosure of a direct attack by Russia on a Nato and EU member state. Failure to respond assertively to this outrage would be inexcusable and dangerous.
A massive explosion in an ammunition depot in the Czech Republic in 2014 was found to be the work of the same two GRU officers, Aleksandr Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga, who four years later carried out the Salisbury attack. It is hard to overstate the significance of this action. Russia sent officers of its intelligence agencies to carry out a sabotage in the heart of Europe, killing two Czech citizens in the process. As described by Tom Tugendhat MP, chair of the Hou
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new analysis by RFE/RL s Bulgarian Service adds further evidence suggesting a possible link between the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU and the Bulgarian explosions.
At around the time of the explosions at the Vazov plant in the spring of 2015, at least six Russians who have been identified as, or are believed to be, GRU agents were regularly coming and going to and from Bulgaria.
Moreover, flight data and GPS track info, first compiled by the open-source investigation organization Bellingcat, shows another alleged GRU agent traveling in and out of Bulgaria, close to the dates of the 2014 explosions.
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That unit has been linked to a series of attempted assassination plots and other sabotage across Europe, including the 2018 poisoning of Sergei Skripal in the English city of Salisbury.
Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer, and his daughter Yulia, nearly died after being exposed to what British authorities later concluded was Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent. A British woman who accidentally came into contact with the substance died.
Britain s NATO allies responded to the Skripal poisoning by imposing sanctions on Russia and expelling diplomats.
While the government unveiled its case, Czech police announced they were seeking two suspected Russian agents carrying various passports, including Russian documents in the names of Aleksandr Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.