“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.
And a
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.
The Czech Senate called the 2014 explosions in Vrbetica an act of state terrorism against one EU member state, and therefore against the entire EU. As many as 67 out of 72 members of the Czech Senate voted for the relevant resolution, the Czech News Agency reports. The Czech authorities accuse Russia s GRU (The Main Intelligence Directorate) of those explosions.
The Czech senators also called on the government of the country to terminate the agreement on friendly relations and cooperation with Russia and reduce the number of employees of the Russian embassy in Prague to only one person. They believe that the incident in Vrbetica should be discussed at the level of the UN Security Council and the governing bodies of NATO and the EU. They also demanded Russia should pay the Czech Republic a compensation for those explosions and offered to exclude Russia from tenders for the construction of nuclear power plants and other critical infrastructure.
EU parliament leaders voice concern over Russia’s alleged involvement in Czech arms depot explosion
Group leaders condemn ‘unacceptable act of hostility’ on sovereign EU territory.
European parliament audiovisual
21 Apr 2021
The Czechs, earlier this week, expelled 18 Russian diplomats suspected of being intelligence operatives involved in the explosion at a Czech arms depot in 2014 which killed two people.
Two Russians suspected of carrying out a nerve agent attack in the UK in 2018 are now also being linked to the blast.
Tensions with Russia over the health of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the military build-up of Russian forces at the Ukrainian border were discussed by EU foreign ministers on Monday.