Служба внешней разведки Российской Федерации: история и настоящее

Russia's primary external intelligence agency

The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation or SVR RF 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. The SVR has its headquarters in the Yasenevo District of Moscow with its director reporting directly to the President of the Russian Federation. 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 (, GRU), its military joint affairs espionage counterpart, which reportedly deployed six times as many spies in foreign countries as the SVR in 1997. 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.

SVR RF is the official foreign operations successor to many prior Soviet era foreign intelligence agencies, ranging from the original 'foreign department' of the Cheka under Vladimir Lenin, to the OGPU and NKVD of the Stalinist era, followed by the First Chief Directorate of the KGB. Officially, the SVR RF dates its own beginnings to the founding of the Special Section of the Cheka on 20 December 1920. The head of the Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky, created the Foreign Department (Inostranny Otdel – INO) to improve the collection as well as the dissemination of foreign intelligence. On 6 February 1922, the Foreign Department of the Cheka became part of a renamed organization, the State Political Directorate, or GPU. The Foreign Department was placed in charge of intelligence activities overseas, including collection of important intelligence from foreign countries and the liquidation of defectors, emigres, and other assorted 'enemies of the people'. In 1922, after the creation of the State Political Directorate (GPU) and its merger with the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the RSFSR, foreign intelligence was conducted by the GPU Foreign Department, and between December 1923 and July 1934 by the Foreign Department of Joint State Political Administration or OGPU. In July 1934, the OGPU was reincorporated into the NKVD. In 1954, the NKVD in turn became the KGB, which in 1991 became SVR and FSB. In 1996, the SVR RF issued a CD ROM entitled Russian Foreign Intelligence: VChK–KGB–SVR, which claims to provide "a professional view on the history and development of one of the most powerful secret services in the world" where all services are presented as one evolving organization.

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 the unification of Russia with other former Soviet republics and attacking the NATO extension as a threat to Russian security, whereas foreign minister Andrey Kozyrev was requesting different things. The rivalry ended in decisive victory for the SVR, when Primakov replaced Kozyrev in January 1996 and brought with him a number of SVR officers to the foreign ministry of Russia. The SVR also tried to justify annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union in World War II using selectively declassified documents.

Sanctioned in May 2023 by the United States Department of the Treasury pursuant to E. O. 14024 for being a political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality of the Government of the Russian Federation.

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. 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.

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. In 2003 it was reported that SVR RF trained Iraqi spies when Russia collaborated with Saddam Hussein. The SVR also has cooperation agreements with the secret police services of certain former Soviet republics, such as Azerbaijan and Belarus. GRU officers who killed Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in Qatar in 2004 reportedly claimed that supporting SVR agents let them down by not evacuating them in time, so they have been arrested by Qatar authorities. However, SVR denied involvement in the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. An SVR spokesperson queried over Litvinenko remarked: "May God give him health." The SVR was reportedly involved in the likely assassination of Maxim Kuzminov.

Zaslon («Заслон») is a special forces unit in the SVR which was created by secret decree on 23 March 1997, and reached operational readiness in 1998. Units were deployed to the Russian embassies in Iraq, Iran and Syria to support protection of diplomats and other tasks.

According to senior SVR officer Sergei Tretyakov, 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. They 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. 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."

February 1994: Aldrich Hazen Ames was charged with providing highly classified information since April 1985 to the Soviet Union and then Russia. The information he passed led to the execution of at least 9 United States agents in Russia. In April, he and his wife pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit espionage and to evading taxes. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. November 1996: Harold James Nicholson was arrested while attempting to take top secret documents out of the United States. He began spying for Russia in 1994. He was a senior ranking Central Intelligence Agency officer. In 1997, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than 23 years in prison. October 2000: Sergei Tretyakov, an SVR officer working undercover at the Russian UN mission defected to the United States with his family. February 2001: Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested for spying for the Soviet Union and Russia for more than 15 years of his 27 years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He passed thousands of pages of classified documents on nuclear war defenses and Sensitive Compartmented Information and exposed three Russian agents of the United States, two of whom were tried and executed. He pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to life in prison. A twelfth man, Alexey Karetnikov, was deported later. They were revealed by SVR defector Deputy Head of illegal spies, Colonel Alexander Poteyev.