Misplaced Pages

#11988

65-718: Main Intelligence Directorate may refer to: GRU (Russian Federation) , the foreign military intelligence agency of the Russian Armed Forces GRU (Soviet Union) , the foreign military intelligence agency of the Soviet Army Main Directorate of Intelligence (Ukraine) , the military intelligence service of Ukraine Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

130-634: A Trotskyite during the Stalinist purges ). 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. Military intelligence was headquartered in

195-466: A 70-year-old retired army colonel, identified only as "Martin M." was believed to have spied for Russia for years. The officer in question, whose name was not disclosed and who might have been approached under a false flag , was reported to have been engaged in selling official secrets to his GRU handlers from 1992 until September 2018. In July 2019, Austria's Ministry of the Interior confirmed that

260-510: A battalion commander in Poland and East Prussia, and was wounded several times. After hospital treatment, he was promoted to the rank of colonel . From October 1916, he commanded the 5th Latvian Zemgale Rifle Regiment and distinguished himself during the defence of Riga against the advancing German army in August 1916. Vācietis was not involved in any political activity before 1917, but after

325-628: A cover for GRU preparing infrastructure for a surprise attack on Finnish locations in case of a conflict situation. Viktor Ilyushin, a GRU operative working as an Air Force deputy attaché, was expelled from France in 2014 for attempted espionage of the staff of François Hollande . In August 2015, a GRU unit posing as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant supporters called CyberCaliphate took TV5Monde offline for approximately 18 hours. GRU's APT – Fancy Bear used fake Facebook accounts to pose as associates of Emmanuel Macron 's campaign staff, with

390-653: A fierce rivalry, GRU is known to have been involved in several high-profile episodes; this included opening backchannel negotiations with the U.S. government during the Cuban Missile Crisis and contributing to the Profumo scandal that partly contributed to the fall of a British administration. 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

455-586: A secretary. Nikolayevich, along with an SVR officer, had reportedly tried to gather intelligence on the country's electricity infrastructure on behalf of Venezuela's Maduro government. On 17 April 2021, the Czech Republic announced its intelligence agencies had concluded that GRU officers, namely members of Russian military intelligence GRU's unit 29155 , were involved in two massive ammunition depot explosions in Vrbetice (part of Vlachovice ), near

520-564: A security screening to enter GRU headquarters. Following the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, the GRU continued as an important part of Russia's intelligence services, especially since it was the only one to more or less maintain operational and institutional continuity: the KGB had been dissolved after aiding a failed coup in 1991 against the then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev . It

585-560: A small and nondescript complex west of the Kremlin, whereas the NKVD was in the very centre of Moscow, next to the building that housed People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs at the bottom of Kuznetsky Most . Consequently, Soviet military intelligence came to be known in Soviet diplomats' cant as distant neighbours (Russian: дальние соседи ) as opposed to the near neighbours of

650-500: A traitorous officer being fed into a crematorium alive. The 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

715-620: Is an aggressive and well-funded organization which has the direct support of – and access to – President Vladimir Putin, allowing freedom in its activities and leniency with regards to diplomatic and legislative scrutiny." The United States alleges that the GRU, as well as the SVR (its civilian foreign intelligence counterpart), makes use of both legal (intelligence officers with diplomatic protection/official government roles) and illegal operatives. The "Havana syndrome," which affected U.S. diplomats and spies worldwide,

SECTION 10

#1732772423012

780-517: Is commanded by Maj. Gen. Andrei Vladimirovich Averyanov  [ d ] and based at the headquarters of the 161st Special Purpose Specialist Training Center in eastern Moscow. Its membership included decorated veterans from the Soviet war in Afghanistan and Russia's most recent series of wars in Chechnya and Ukraine . It has been linked to the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea ,

845-561: Is hard to say which one of the two colonels was the more gifted. Both undoubtedly were endowed with first-rate talents ... Vācietis was the more stubborn and cranky and undoubtedly prone to yield to the influence of elements hostile to the revolution. Kamenev was easier to get along with." In summer 1919 Vācietis proposed that the Eastern Front should halt military operations having reached the Urals, so that troops could be transferred to

910-650: Is now succeeded by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and the Federal Security Service (FSB). Evidencing its growing strategic profile, in 2006 the GRU moved to a new headquarters complex at Khoroshovskoye Shosse  [ ru ] , which cost 9.5 billion rubles to build and incorporates 70,000 square meters. In April 2009, President Dmitry Medvedev fired then-GRU head Valentin Korabelnikov , who had headed

975-517: Is reputedly Russia's largest foreign-intelligence agency, and is distinguished among its counterparts for its willingness to execute riskier "complicated, high stakes operations". According to unverified statements by Stanislav Lunev , a defector from the GRU, in 1997 the agency deployed six times as many agents in foreign countries as the SVR, and commanded some 25,000 Spetsnaz troops. The first Russian body for military intelligence dates from 1810, in

1040-614: The 2006 Georgian–Russian espionage controversy , four officers working for the GRU Alexander Savva, Dmitry Kazantsev, Aleksey Zavgorodny and Alexander Baranov were arrested by the Counter-Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia and were accused of espionage and sabotage . This spy network was managed from Armenia by GRU Colonel Anatoly Sinitsin. A few days later

1105-628: The 2015–2016 DNC hacks in the United States, alleging he played a leading role in the Bundestag hack. In 2018, German officials reported a key data network used by the Chancellery , ministries, and Parliament had been breached. German media attributed the attack to a Russian Government-sponsored hacking group, either Snake/Ouroborus or Fancy Bear. Jukums V%C4%81cietis Jukums Vācietis's family were Latvian labourers. From about

1170-648: The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine . On 5 September 2018, Major Deniss Metsavas and Pjotr Volin were charged with giving classified information to the GRU The two were convicted in February 2019. In September 2018, Finnish police ran a large scale operation against numerous sites owned by Airiston Helmi Oy company that over years accumulated land plots and buildings close to nationally significant key straits, ports, oil refineries and other strategic locations as well as two Finnish Navy vessels. The security operation

1235-537: The Cold War , the GRU, like many of its Western rivals, maintained rezidenturas , or resident spies, worldwide; these included both "legal" agents, based at Soviet embassies with official diplomatic cover , and "illegal" officers without cover . It also maintained a signals intelligence (SIGINT) station in Lourdes , Cuba and other Soviet-bloc countries . Though less well known than the KGB, with which it shared

1300-707: The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Federal Security Service (FSB), and the Federal Protective Service (FSO) – whose heads report directly to the president of Russia (see Intelligence agencies 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 . The directorate

1365-706: The Georgian Parliament . Since the mid-1970s the GRU has maintained a satellite communications interception post near Andreyevka, located approximately 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Spassk-Dalny , Primorsky Krai . According to a Western assessment of the GRU seen by Reuters in the autumn of 2018, the GRU had a long-running program to run "illegal" spies, i.e. those who work without diplomatic cover and who live under an assumed identity in foreign countries for years. The assessment said: "It plays an increasingly important role in Russia's development of Information Warfare (both defensive and offensive). It

SECTION 20

#1732772423012

1430-683: The October Revolution , he immediately sided with the new Bolshevik government, and was given command of the 12th army. From April 1918, Vācietis was the commander of the Red Latvian Riflemen division , which was then the most reliable unit under Bolshevik control. He played a critical role in July 1918 in suppressing a revolt by the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries , who opposed the decision to end

1495-651: The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (then investigating the Douma chemical attack by Russia-backed Bashar al-Assad and evidence in the Skripal case). Spain has also investigated the travel of Unit 29155 member Denis Sergeev (who has also used the name Sergei Fedotov) to Barcelona in 2017 around the time of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum . The unit is also accused of being behind

1560-565: The United States Department of Justice indicted six Unit 74455 GRU officers for multiple cyberattacks, including the December 2015 Ukraine power grid cyberattack , the 2017 Macron e-mail leaks , the 2017 NotPetya attacks , the 2018 Winter Olympics hack (for which the GRU attempted to frame North Korea ), several 2018 attacks on Skripal case investigators, and a 2018–2019 cyberattack campaign against Georgian media and

1625-638: The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Spetsnaz GRU remained intact as part of the Russian GRU until 2010, when it was reassigned to other agencies. In 2013, however, the decision was reversed and Spetsnaz GRU units were reassigned to GRU divisions and placed under GRU authority again. GRU officers train at a Ministry of Defence military academy at 50 Narodnoe Opolchenie Street, with intelligence agents receiving additional training at

1690-491: The 2015 poisonings of Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Grebev (also spelled Emilyan), the 2016 Montenegro coup attempt , and the poisoning of Russian defector Sergei Skripal . Unit 29155 operatives have also been tracked to Switzerland during the time (early 2018) other GRU units hacked the World Anti-Doping Agency (then investigating state-sponsored doping by Russian Olympians ) and attempted to hack

1755-1099: The Cherepovets Higher Military School of Radio Electronics. The A.F. Mozhaysky Military-Space Academy has also been used to train GRU officers. 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 ( SIGINT ) and imagery reconnaissance ( IMINT ) and satellite imagery capabilities." Soviet GRU Space Intelligence Directorate had put more than 130 SIGINT satellites into orbit. GRU and KGB SIGINT network employed about 350,000 specialists. On 9 November 2018 Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said that

1820-725: The Czech-Slovak border, in October 2014. The explosions killed two persons and "inflicted immense material damage, seriously endangered and disrupted the lives of many local residents", according to the Czech prime minister. In 2007, Deniss Metsavas, a Lasnamäe -born member of the Estonian Land Forces , was targeted with a honey trapping operation while visiting Smolensk . He was subsequently blackmailed into providing information to GRU handlers. His father, Pjotr Volin,

1885-908: The First Department under the General Chief of Staff. In 1836, the intelligence functions were transferred to the Second Department under the General Chief of Staff. After many name-changes through the years, in April 1906, the Military intelligence was carried out by the Fifth Department under the General Chief of Staff of the War Ministry. The GRU's first predecessor in Soviet Russia was established by

1950-578: The GRU since 1997, reportedly over Korabelnikov's objections to proposed reforms. Pursuant to these reforms, the following year, the official name of the unit was changed from "GRU" to the "Main Directorate of the Russian General Staff", or "G.U."; however, "GRU" continues to be commonly used in media. The GRU underwent severe reductions in funding and personnel following the 2008 Russo-Georgian War , during which it failed to discover

2015-601: The GU's 100th anniversary, President Putin proposed restoring the agency's former name: Главное разведывательное управление (GRU). The GRU is organized into numerous directorates, directions, and sections. According to the data available in open sources in 1997, the structure of the Main Directorate consists of at least 12 known directorates and several other auxiliary departments. The American Congressional Research Service , based on interviews with various experts, gives

Main Intelligence Directorate - Misplaced Pages Continue

2080-882: 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 . The GRU controls the military intelligence service and maintains its own special forces units . Unlike Russia's other security and intelligence agencies  – such as

2145-650: The Institute of the Russian Diaspora. The unit originated from Soviet GLAVPUR ( Glavnoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie , or the Main Political Department) and was created in early 1990s and notably employed colonel Aleksandr Viktorovich Golyev, whose memoirs were published in 2020 along with other GRU documents. In the 1990s, the unit focused on pro-Soviet disinformation in newly split republics such as Lithuania and Chechnya. In later years

2210-626: The NKVD/KGB. The 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. In addition to operations against the Axis powers, GRU is credited with having infiltrated the British nuclear weapon programme and up to 70 American government and scientific institutions. During

2275-742: The Red Army; this included changes to its name, status, and responsibilities. Throughout most of the interwar period, the men and women who worked for Red Army Intelligence called it either the Fourth Department, the Intelligence Service, the Razvedupr , or the RU. […] As a result of the re-organisation [in 1926], carried out in part to break up Trotsky's hold on the army, the Fourth Department seems to have been placed directly under

2340-425: The Russian intelligence's recent operations that appeared to be botched might have been intended for discovery. Similarly, in 2019, Eerik-Niiles Kross , a former Estonian intelligence official, opined that GRU's apparent sloppiness "has become part of the psychological warfare . It's not that they have become that much more aggressive. They want to be felt. It's part of the game." On 2 November 2018, while marking

2405-552: The Sandworm Team or the Main Center for Technologies, used various fictitious online identities ( DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 ) to coordinate the release of the politically sensitive stolen documents with WikiLeaks for "maximum political impact" starting on the eve of the 2016 Democratic National Convention . Its guilt has been reported by American media and a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation. In October 2020,

2470-599: The Western intelligence community , during perestroika , due partly to the writings of " Viktor Suvorov " ( Vladimir Rezun ), a GRU officer who defected to Great 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 , the country's de facto leader, needed to undergo

2535-509: The WhisperGate malware against several Ukrainian organizations. The advisory detailed the tactics and techniques used by Unit 29155 and offered further analysis of WhisperGate. Unit 35555 is a socio-psychological research laboratory linked to supporting Wagner and other private military companies. Unit 54777, alternately called the 72nd Special Service Center, is one of the GRU's primary psychological warfare capabilities. Unit 54777 retains several front organizations , including InfoRos and

2600-437: The age of six, he worked as a shepherd and as a labourer, while he was a pupil at the Šķēde Parish School. In 1889-1891 he studied at the Ministry of Kuldīga school. At the same time, he worked in a match factory. Vācietis started his military career in Imperial Russia in 1891, and reached the rank of second lieutenant after graduating from infantry cadet school in 1895. In 1914, at the start of World War I , he saw combat as

2665-473: The alleged Russian bounty program where Taliban militants were paid to kill American troops, although the program's existence is uncertain, unproven, and unverified. The FBI, CISA , and NSA concluded that cyber actors linked to the GRU's 161st Specialist Training Center (Unit 29155) had conducted cyber operations targeting global entities for espionage, sabotage, and reputational harm since at least 2020. Starting on January 13, 2022, these actors deployed

Main Intelligence Directorate - Misplaced Pages Continue

2730-438: The arrested officers were handed over to Russia through the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) . Spetsnaz GRU unit No. 48427, an airborne unit, participated in the Russo-Georgian War . The 2015 Bundestag hack was attributed by German intelligence to the GRU. In 2020, Germany issued an arrest warrant for Dmitry Badin, a GRU officer and Unit 26165/ Fancy Bear member also accused of involvement in

2795-508: The attempted 2018 OPCW hack and targeting its investigation into the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), for which the Dutch investigation blames pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists armed with surface-to-air missiles by Russia. Unit 29155 is tasked with foreign assassinations and other covert activities aimed at destabilizing European countries. The Unit is thought to have operated in secret since at least 2008, though its existence only became publicly known in 2019. It

2860-452: The colonel's handler was a Moscow-born GRU officer Igor Egorovich Zaytsev, a Russian national, for whom an international arrest warrant had been issued. An investigation by Bellingcat and Capital identified GRU officer Denis Vyacheslavovich Sergeev (using the alias Sergey Vyacheslavovich Fedotov) as a suspect in the 2015 poisoning of Bulgarian arms dealer Emiliyan Gebrev ( Емилиян Гебрев ) in Sofia , following an attack that mirrored

2925-411: The context of the Napoleonic Wars raging across Europe, when War Minister Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly proposed to Emperor Alexander I of Russia the formation of the Expedition for Secret Affairs under the War Ministry ( Russian : Экспедиция секретных дел при военном министерстве ); two years later, it was renamed the Special Bureau ( Russian : Особая канцелярия ). In 1815, the Bureau became

2990-409: The control of the State Defense Council (Gosudarstvennaia komissiia oborony, or GKO), the successor of the RVSR. Thereafter its analysis and reports went directly to the GKO and the Politburo, apparently even bypassing the Red Army Staff. The first head of the Fourth Directorate was Yan Karlovich Berzin , who remained in the post from March 1924 until April 1935 (in 1938, he was arrested and executed as

3055-427: The expulsion of several Russian Embassy staffers, including the defence attaché to Ottawa . In December 2020, Migración Colombia confirmed the expulsion of two Russian diplomats accused of espionage. One of the assailants was identified as Aleksandr Nikolayevich Belousov who, according to the National Intelligence Directorate of Colombia, is a GRU officer that had been credited by the Russian Embassy in Bogotá as

3120-472: The failed 2018 Salisbury poisoning , and an unprecedented number of disclosed GRU agents. Korobov died on 21 November 2018, "after a serious and prolonged illness", according to the official Defence Ministry statement. His death provoked speculations and unverified reports of him having fallen ill in October that year following a harsh dressing-down from President Vladimir Putin . However, former CIA station-chief Daniel Hoffman cautioned in 2017 that some of

3185-525: The following organization of the GRU, although it acknowledges that the organization's true structure is "a closely guarded secret." 4 Regional Directorates: 11 Mission-Specific Directorates: Unit 26165, also known as Fancy Bear, STRONTIUM, and APT28, is a cyber operations / hacking group . Unit 26165 was originally created during the Cold War as the 85th Main Special Service Center, responsible for military intelligence cryptography . The Netherlands has accused Unit 26165 of also being involved in

3250-418: The goal of interfering with the 2017 French presidential election . Georgy Petrovich Roshka, a member of the GRU's Unit 26165 was involved in the theft of Macron's emails, and subsequent distribution via WikiLeaks . In December 2019, Le Monde reported that the joint effort by British, Swiss, French and U.S. intelligence agencies had discovered an apparent "rear base" of GRU in southeastern France, which

3315-410: The more advanced anti-aircraft weapons obtained by Georgia. However, it continued to play a key role in several Russian operations, including in Russia's intervention in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and the subsequent annexation of Crimea . GRU agents were also implicated in numerous cyberwarfare operations across the West, including in the U.S., France, and Germany. Many of its successes took place during

SECTION 50

#1732772423012

3380-425: The secret order signed on 5 November 1918 by Jukums Vācietis , the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army (RKKA), and by Ephraim Sklyansky , deputy to Leon Trotsky , the civilian leader of the Red Army. (Since 2006, the Russian Federation has officially observed the date of 5 November as the professional holiday of military intelligence in Russia.) The military human intelligence service thus established

3445-454: The south for the campaign against General Denikin , and the Don Cossacks , but Kamenev insisted that they could spare troops for the southern front and still advance past the Urals into Siberia. He was proved right, and on 3 July 1919, Kamenev replaced Vācietis as commander-in-chief of the Red Army. On 8 July 1919, Vācietis was arrested under the accusation of membership in a counter-revolutionary reactionary White Guardist organization, but

3510-434: The techniques used in the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal . That attack has been specifically tied to Unit 29155 . Three individuals were charged in absentia by the Bulgarians in January 2020. In March 2021, six Bulgarian nationals alleged to be members of a GRU spy ring operating in Bulgaria were arrested in Sofia . The GRU received intelligence from Jeffrey Delisle of the Royal Canadian Navy , leading to

3575-438: The tenure of Igor Sergun , who headed the service from late 2011 until his death in early January 2016. Sergun's sudden death shortly after the restoration of the GRU's influence led to speculations of foul play by Russian adversaries. The tenure of Sergun's successor, Igor Korobov , was marked by what some news media construed as multiple high-profile setbacks, such as the thwarted 2016 coup d'état attempt in Montenegro ,

3640-516: The title Main Intelligence Directorate . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Intelligence_Directorate&oldid=1151016919 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description matches Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages GRU (Russian Federation) The Main Directorate of

3705-459: The unit covered a broad range of activities from running NGOs targeting Russian expatriates in Western countries (InfoRos, Institute of the Russian Diaspora, World Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots Living Abroad, Foundation for Supporting and Protecting the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad) and manipulating public opinion in Russia and abroad in preparation for armed conflicts such as in Georgia, Donbas or Syria. Unit 74455, also known as

3770-402: The war with Germany. From July to September 1918, Vācietis commanded the Eastern Front , which he created out of scattered units fighting for the Bolsheviks in Siberia against the White Army and the Czechoslovak Legion . During his two months as commander of the front, the Red Army scored its first major victory of the Russian Civil War by recapturing Kazan . On 2 September 1918 Vācietis

3835-418: Was also recruited by GRU agents as leverage against Deniss, and would serve as a courier for classified information. In May 2017, Russian citizen Artem Zinchenko was convicted of spying on Estonia for the GRU. In 2018, Zinchenko was traded back to Russia in exchange for Raivo Susi, an Estonian imprisoned for espionage. In 2022, Zinchenko fled Russia to seek asylum in Estonia, citing personal opposition to

3900-467: Was appointed the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army (RKKA), and a member of the Revolutionary Military Council - but became embroiled in a dispute with Sergey Kamenev , his successor as commander of the Eastern Front, which was intertwined with power struggles within the Bolshevik party leadership, in which Leon Trotsky , the Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, backed Vācietis, and Joseph Stalin backed Kamenev. Trotsky later wrote that It

3965-422: Was originally known as the Registration Agency ( Registrupravlenie , or Registrupr ; Russian: Региструпр ) of the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic; Simon Aralov was its first head. Its early history was marked by a series of reorganisations influenced by the Soviet-Polish War , the consolidation and restablisation of the Soviet Union, and the general reorganisation of

SECTION 60

#1732772423012

4030-410: Was possibly linked to GRU’s Unit 29155, as reported by the Insider. Symptoms included migraines and dizziness. Investigations suggested incidents might have occurred as early as 2016, with potential prior events in Frankfurt, Germany. The U.S. Congress passed the Havana Act in 2021 to provide aid to affected personnel and families. Commonly known as the Spetsnaz GRU , it was formed in 1949. Following

4095-468: Was presumably used by GRU for the clandestine operations carried out throughout Europe. Investigators had identified 15 agents – all of them members of GRU's Unit 29155 – who visited Haute-Savoie in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes , region of France from 2014 to 2018, including Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov , who are believed to be behind the poisoning of the former GRU colonel and British double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018. During

4160-412: Was run in parallel in multiple locations, involving Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, local police, Tax Administration, Border Guard, and Finnish Defence Forces. During the operation, a no-fly zone was declared over Turku Archipelago where key objects were located. While official cause given for the raid was multi-million euro money laundering and tax fraud, media speculated that the company had been

4225-499: Was soon released when the charge was proved false. Trotsky suspected that "dissatisfied with his removal from the post of Commander-in-Chief, he had engaged in reckless talk with officers close to him." He also believed that Stalin was behind Vācietis's arrest. In 1922 Vācietis became a professor of the RKKA Military Academy (future Frunze Military Academy ). During this time, he wrote several books, most notable among them being 'Latvian Riflemen's Historical Importance'. In 1935 Vācietis

#11988