Audacious but error-prone, the Salisbury attack has all the hallmarks of Russia’s most secretive intelligence agency
Theresa May’s statement that the UK believes the GRU was behind the Salisbury novichok poisoning shines further unwelcome spotlight on the most secretive of all Russia’s intelligence agencies. A slow drip of information about GRU operations in recent years, from hacking ahead of the US election to support for the Kremlin’s wars in Ukraine and Syria, has shown the wide reach of the agency. The intelligence wing of the Russian military was renamed the GU in 2010, but both inside and outside the country it is still more commonly known by its old name, the GRU. The agency, where novichok target Sergei Skripal used to work, performs both traditional military intelligence tasks and more traditional foreign intelligence operations. Continue reading... |