Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)
The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation (Russian: Служба внешней разведки Российской Федерации, romanized: Sluzhba vneshney razvedki Rossiyskoy Federatsii, IPA: [ˈsluʐbə ˈvnʲɛʂnʲɪj rɐˈzvʲɛtkʲɪ]) or SVR RF (Russian: СВР РФ) is Russia's external intelligence agency, focusing mainly on civilian affairs. The SVR RF succeeded the First Chief Directorate (PGU) of the KGB in December 1991.[2] The SVR has its headquarters in the Yasenevo District of Moscow with its director reporting directly to the President of the Russian Federation.
Agency overview
December 1991
Russia
Yasenevo, Moscow, Russia
55°35′02″N 37°31′01″E / 55.584°N 37.517°E
Classified; estimated 13,000 in 2010[1]
Classified
- Institute of Intelligence Information
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Unlike the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the SVR is tasked with intelligence and espionage activities outside the Russian Federation. It works together with the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (Russian: Главное разведывательное управление, romanized: Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye, IPA: [ˈglavnəjə rɐzˈvʲɛdɨvətʲɪlʲnəjə ʊprɐˈvlʲenʲɪjə], GRU), its military-joint affairs espionage counterpart, which reportedly deployed six times as many spies in foreign countries as the SVR in 1997.[3] The SVR is also authorized to negotiate anti-terrorist cooperation and intelligence-sharing arrangements with foreign intelligence agencies, and provides analysis and dissemination of intelligence to the Russian president.[4]
Any information pertaining to specific identities of staff employees (officers) of the SVR is legally classified as a state secret; since September 2018, the same applies to non-staff personnel (i.e., informers and recruited agents).[5]
According to Article 12 of the 1996 Federal Law "On Foreign Intelligence", "overall direction" of external intelligence activity is executed by the president of Russia, who appoints the Director of the SVR.[8]
The director provides regular briefings to the president. The director is a permanent member of the Security Council of Russia and the Defense Council.
According to published sources, the SVR included the following directorates in the 1990s:[9][10]
According to the SVR RF web site,[11] the organization currently consists of a director, a first deputy director (who oversees the directions for Foreign Counterintelligence and Economic Intelligence) and the following departments:
Each directorate is headed by a deputy director who reports to the SVR Director. The Red Banner Intelligence Academy has been renamed the Academy of Foreign Intelligence (ABP are its Russian initials) and is housed in the Science Directorate.
Operations[edit]
Espionage[edit]
From the end of the 1980s, KGB and later SVR began to create "a second echelon" of "auxiliary agents in addition to our main weapons, illegals and special agents", according to former SVR officer Kouzminov.[10] These agents are legal immigrants, including scientists and other professionals. Another SVR officer who defected to Britain in 1996 described several thousand Russian agents and intelligence officers, some of them "illegals" who live under deep cover abroad.[4]
Between 1994 and 2001, high-profile cases of Americans working as sources ('spies') for Russian agencies included those of Aldrich Hazen Ames, Harold James Nicholson, Earl Edwin Pitts, Robert Philip Hanssen and George Trofimoff. They would be considered double agents because they were working for American intelligence agencies while providing information to Russia. They were not Russian 'illegals' however, because they were American citizens.
Cooperation with foreign intelligence services[edit]
An agreement on intelligence cooperation between Russia and China was signed in 1992. This secret treaty covers cooperation of the GRU GSh VS RF and the SVR RF with the China's Intelligence Bureau of the Joint Staff Department.[14] In 2003 it was reported that SVR RF trained Iraqi spies when Russia collaborated with Saddam Hussein.[15][16] The SVR also has cooperation agreements with the secret police services of certain former Soviet republics, such as Azerbaijan and Belarus.[14]
Recruitment[edit]
The SVR RF actively recruits Russian citizens who live in foreign countries.
"Once the SVR officer targets a Russian émigré for recruitment, they approach them, usually at their place of residence and make an effort to reach an understanding," said former FSB officer Aleksander Litvinenko.[29]
These claims have not been confirmed by the official SVR website, which states that only Russian citizens without dual citizenship can become SVR RF agents.
Russian intelligence no longer recruits people on the basis of Communist ideals, which was the "first pillar" of KGB recruitment, said analyst Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy. "The second pillar of recruitment is love for Russia. In the West, only Russian immigrants have feelings of filial obedience toward Russia. That’s precisely why [the SVR] works with them so often. A special division was created just for this purpose. It regularly holds Russian immigrant conferences, which Putin is fond of attending."[30]
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