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69-969: A department of transportation ( DOT or DoT ) is a government agency responsible for managing transportation . The term is primarily used in the United States to describe a transportation authority that coordinates or oversees transportation-related matters within its jurisdiction. In the United States, the largest DOT is the United States Department of Transportation , a federal agency which oversees interstate travel and numerous other transportation agencies. All U.S. states have their own DOTs, responsible for managing and overseeing transportation, transportation-related infrastructure , and transportation safety in their respective states. They provide enforcement through DOT officers within their respective jurisdictions. Though

138-634: 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

207-466: 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

276-489: A bicameral legislature. The term "government agency" or "administrative agency" usually applies to one of the independent agencies of the United States government , which exercise some degree of independence from the President's control. Although the heads of independent agencies are often appointed by the government, they can usually be removed only for cause. The heads of independent agencies work together in groups, such as

345-529: A commission, board or council. Independent agencies often function as miniature versions of the tripartite federal government with the authority to legislate (through the issuing or promulgation of regulations), to adjudicate disputes, and to enforce agency regulations. Examples of independent agencies include the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Federal Reserve Board , U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),

414-628: 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

483-653: 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

552-719: A government agency include the British Navy Board , responsible for ships and supplies, which was established in 1546 by King Henry VIII and the British Commissioners of Bankruptcy established in 1570. From 1933, the New Deal saw growth in U.S. federal agencies, the " alphabet agencies " as they were used to deliver new programs created by legislation, such as the Federal Emergency Relief Administration . From

621-586: 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

690-564: 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

759-560: 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

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828-500: 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

897-620: 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,

966-517: 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 ,

1035-650: 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

1104-517: 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

1173-614: 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

1242-648: 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

1311-537: 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

1380-607: The Department of the Treasury . Most federal agencies are created by Congress through statutes called " enabling acts ", which define the scope of an agency's authority. Because the Constitution does not expressly mention federal agencies (as it does the three branches), some commentators have called agencies the "headless fourth branch" of the federal government. However, most independent agencies are technically part of

1449-707: 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

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1518-706: 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

1587-750: The NITI Aayog , which is chaired ex officio by the Prime Minister. Russia has had many government agencies throughout its history. The USSR had the secretive KGB . Today, Russian government agencies such as the FSB , FSO , and the GRU use Spetsnaz or other masked operators for any missions. Other organizations include Kremlin and presidential security. The Government agencies in Sweden are State controlled organizations who act independently to carry out

1656-637: The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). A broader definition of the term "government agency" also means the United States federal executive departments that include the President's cabinet-level departments and their sub-units. Examples of these include the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which is a bureau of

1725-651: 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

1794-616: The Parliament of the United Kingdom , Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Parliament . The Congress and President of the United States delegate specific authority to government agencies to regulate the complex facets of the modern American federal state . Also, most of the 50 U.S. states have created similar government agencies. Each state government is similar to the national government, with all but one having

1863-489: 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

1932-638: 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

2001-540: The 1980s, as part of New Public Management , several countries including Australia and the United Kingdom developed the use of agencies to improve efficiency in public services. Administrative law in France refers to autorité administrative indépendante (AAI) or Independent Administrative Authorities. They tend to be prominent in the following areas of public policy; Independent Administrative Authorities in France may not be instructed or ordered to take specific actions by

2070-491: 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

2139-1099: 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

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2208-725: 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,

2277-908: 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

2346-578: 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

2415-601: 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

2484-882: 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

2553-650: 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

2622-626: 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

2691-442: 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

2760-425: 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

2829-429: 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,

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2898-412: 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

2967-509: 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

3036-473: 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

3105-438: 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

3174-508: 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

3243-452: 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

3312-411: 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

3381-409: 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

3450-501: The executive branch, with a few located in the legislative branch of government. By enacting the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in 1946, Congress established some means to oversee government agency action. The APA established uniform administrative law procedures for a federal agency's promulgation of rules and adjudication of claims. The APA also sets forth the process for judicial review of agency action. Glavnoye Razvedyvatel%27noye Upravleniye The Main Directorate of

3519-427: 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

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3588-472: 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

3657-525: 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

3726-418: 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

3795-406: The government. The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace ( Greek : Γενική Γραμματεία Μακεδονίας-Θράκης), previously Ministry for Macedonia and Thrace ( Greek : Υπουργείο Μακεδονίας-Θράκης) is a government agency of the Hellenic Republic that is responsible for the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace . The term agency in India has several meanings; for example, the Cabinet and

3864-410: 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

3933-513: The outcome in individual cases as well. In addition to the State and its agencies, there are also local government agencies, which are extensions of municipalities and county councils . Agencies in the United Kingdom are either executive agencies answerable to government ministers or non-departmental public bodies answerable directly to parliament or the devolved assemblies of the United Kingdom. They are also commonly known as Quangos . Agencies can be created by enabling legislation by

4002-449: The parliament Secretariat describes itself as a " nodal agency for coordination amongst the ministries of the Govt. of India". Most notably as an international feature, what appear to be independent agencies ( or apex agencies ) include some that have active roles for Ministers: such as, the National Security Council , the Medical Council of India , the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI), the Indian Council of Agricultural Research , and

4071-416: The policies of the Government of Sweden . The Ministries are relatively small and merely policy-making organizations, allowed to control agencies by policy decisions but not by direct orders. This means that while the agencies are subject to decisions made by the Government, Ministers are explicitly prohibited (so-called ban on ministerstyre ) from interfering with the day-to-day operation in an agency or

4140-425: 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

4209-434: 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

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4278-438: 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 ,

4347-533: The term "department of transportation" is most associated with the United States, the term has been used in various forms for other countries' transportation authorities. Government agency A government agency may be established by either a national government or a state government within a federal system. Agencies can be established by legislation or by executive powers. The autonomy, independence, and accountability of government agencies also vary widely. Early examples of organizations that would now be termed

4416-459: 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

4485-418: 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

4554-422: 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

4623-410: 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

4692-468: 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

4761-412: 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

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