GRU

The first Russian body for military intelligence dates from 1810, in 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 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 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 was originally known as the Registration Agency (Registrupravlenie, or Registrupr; Russian: Региструпр) of the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic; Semyon 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 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 the control of the State Defense Council (Gosudarstvennaia komissiia oborony, or GKO), the successor of the RVSR. …

Since 1977, the director of the Intelligence Directorate of the Main Staff of the Russian Navy has also typically been the deputy director of the GRU. The Navy Intelligence Directorate was made subordinate to the fifth directorate of the 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 the following organization of the GRU, although it acknowledges that the organization's true structure is "a closely guarded secret."

The New York Times in 2026 identified the Twentieth Directorate as operating in Tokyo, Japan.

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 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 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, the 2015 poisonings of Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev (also spelled Emilyan), the 2016 Montenegro coup attempt, and the poisoning of Russian defector Sergei Skripal. …

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 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, 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 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 the Cherepovets Higher Military School of Radio Electronics. The A.F. Mozhaysky Military-Space Academy has also been used to train GRU officers.