Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)

• 1. Origins And Evolution

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  The Foreign Intelligence Service traces its lineage to a specific date on the 20th of December 1920. Vladimir Lenin established the Special Section of the Cheka that day to handle foreign intelligence operations. Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of the Cheka, created the Foreign Department to improve how information was collected and shared abroad. This unit became part of the State Political Directorate or GPU on the 6th of February 1922. The organization evolved through various names including the OGPU and NKVD before becoming the KGB in 1954. The SVR officially succeeded the First Chief Directorate of the KGB in December 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. A CD-ROM released by the agency in 1996 claimed all these services were one evolving organization under a single professional view. Former Director Sergei Lebedev stated there has not been any place on the planet where a KGB officer has not been.

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• 2. Legal Authority And Structure

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  The Law on Foreign Intelligence was written by SVR leadership itself and adopted in August 1992. This law provided conditions for penetration by checkists of all levels of the government and economy. A new Law on Foreign Intelligence Organs passed by the State Duma and Federation Council in late 1995 was signed into effect by President Boris Yeltsin on the 10th of January 1996. Since 2012, the President of the Russian Federation can personally issue any secret orders to the SVR without consulting parliament. The director provides regular briefings to the president and serves as a permanent member of the Security Council. The Red Banner Intelligence Academy is now housed within the Science Directorate and renamed the Academy of Foreign Intelligence. Each directorate is headed by a deputy director who reports directly to the SVR Director. As of September 2018, information regarding non-staff personnel including agents and informants became state secrets.

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• 3. Espionage Operations And Tactics

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  From the end of the 1980s, the agency began creating a second echelon of auxiliary agents alongside main weapons like illegals. These agents included legal immigrants such as scientists and other professionals living abroad. Vasili Mitrokhin described several thousand Russian agents and intelligence officers some of them illegals living under deep cover. Between 1994 and 2001 high-profile cases involved Americans working as sources for Russian agencies. Aldrich Hazen Ames provided highly classified information since April 1985 leading to the execution of at least nine United States agents in Russia. Harold James Nicholson was arrested while attempting to take top secret documents out of the United States in November 1996. Earl Edwin Pitts was charged with providing top secret documents from 1987 until 1992. George Trofimoff was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union and Russia since about 1969. Robert Philip Hanssen passed thousands of pages of classified documents on nuclear war defenses over more than fifteen years.

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• 4. Notable Defectors And Cases

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  Sergei Tretyakov an SVR officer working undercover at the Russian UN mission defected to the United States with his family in October 2000. He often sent intelligence officers to branches of the New York Public Library where they gained access to the Internet without anyone knowing their identity. These officers placed propaganda and disinformation on educational websites and sent emails to US broadcasters. The articles or studies were generated by Russian experts who worked for the SVR. In June 2010 ten individuals who allegedly carried on deep-cover espionage activities were arrested by the FBI. An eleventh was arrested while attempting to transit through Cyprus. These individuals were purportedly working for the SVR on long term covert assignments in penetrating policy making circles in the United States government. A twelfth man Alexey Karetnikov was deported later after being revealed by SVR defector Colonel Alexander Poteyev. The agents arrested included Mikhail Semenko Vladimir Guryev Lidiya Guryev Andrey Bezrukov Yelena Vavilova Mikhail Kutsik Nataliya Pereverzeva Mikhail Anatolyevich Vasenkov Vicky Pelaez and Anna Chapman.

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• 5. Political Influence And Policy

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  During Boris Yeltsin's presidency the SVR conflicted with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for directing Russian foreign policy. SVR director Yevgeni Primakov upstaged the foreign ministry by publishing warnings to the West not to interfere in unification efforts. He attacked NATO enlargement as a threat to Russian security whereas foreign minister Andrey Kozyrev requested different things. The rivalry ended in decisive victory for the SVR when Primakov replaced Kozyrev in January 1996. In September 1999 Yeltsin admitted that the SVR played a greater role in Russian foreign policy than the Foreign Ministry. It was reported that the SVR defined the Russian position on nuclear technology transfers to Iran and modification of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The agency also tried to justify annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union using selectively declassified documents. Sanctions were imposed on May 2023 by the United States Department of the Treasury pursuant to Executive Order 14024.

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• 6. Covert Actions And Disinformation

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  In the Soviet era the agency handled covert political assassinations abroad and these activities reportedly continue today. An agent in London made preparations to assassinate Boris Berezovsky with a binary weapon in September 2003. GRU officers who killed Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in Qatar in 2004 claimed supporting agents let them down by not evacuating them in time. Former KGB agent Igor the Assassin believed to have poisoned Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 was allegedly an SVR officer though the service denied involvement. A special forces unit called Zaslon was created by secret decree on the 23rd of March 1997 and reached operational readiness in 1998. Units were deployed to embassies in Iraq at Baghdad Iran and Syria at Damascus to support protection of diplomats. The unit faced criticism following the assassination of Andrei Karlov the Russian ambassador to Turkey on the 19th of December 2016. The SVR has been noted for multiple false disinformative official public statements regarding European Union plans to occupy Moldova after the 2025 election.

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