The Europe-roving Russian GRU hit squad

FULL VERSION OF MY TIMES PIECE TODAY: MI5 “hostile state” investigators have been at the centre of efforts by a number of western intelligence agencies to plot the movements and activities of a covert Russian assassination and espionage team operating in Europe. Unit 29155, part of Russia’s military intelligence directorate, GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie) , has been exposed as a roving Kremlin-backed hit squad. This week the French newspaper Le Monde revealed members of the unit had been based at three Alpine towns in France, Chamonix, Evian and Annemasse, to carry out their Europe-wide assignments. MI5’s investigation into the unit began after the near-fatal poisoning of GRU defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, on March 4 last year in Salisbury, Wiltshire. Deadly novichok nerve agent suspected of having been developed in a Russian military laboratory was smeared on the front door knob of their house. The MI5 investigators swiftly uncovered the movements of two main Russian suspects leading to their arrival in Salisbury. The two men were named as Alexander Petrov and Rusian Boshirov. However, their real identities, according to the Bellingcat investigative website, were Dr Alexander Mishkin and Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, both suspected members of GRU Unit 29155, commanded by Major-General Andrei Averyanov. The confirmed link between the Skripal poisoning and the GRU unit initiated a multi-agency operation, involving the UK, US, France and Switzerland to trace the movements of up to 15 members of the Russian hit squad. Checking facial-recognition CCTV systems, hotel registrations, shops and restaurants where suspects had been spotted, MI5 and the other agencies built up a life pattern of many of the Europe-based members of Unit 29155. Traces of the unit’s presence were found going back to 2014. The three Alpine towns were pinpointed as key staging-posts, selected, it was assumed, because of their location close to the Italian and Swiss borders. UK security sources would not confirm whether the two Skripal suspects had also operated from France. They flew into the UK from Moscow on March 2, 2018. The British investigators led the way, according to US intelligence sources. However, the new revelations about the unit published in Le Monde came from French intelligence officials. The US sources said it seemed the French wanted the details to come out. The US sources in particular emphasised the importance of linking Unit 29155 directly to the Kremlin. “This isn’t some rogue unit operating with autonomy. They do what they do at the behest of [President] Putin,” one US intelligence source said. The GRU unit, the source said, was “in general far more aggressive” than other Russian intelligence agencies. It also operated on the basis of a “higher tolerance of risk”, confirming observations following the Skripal poisoning that the suspects appeared to be acting in a reckless manner, seemingly unafraid of being caught in the act. MI5’s retrospective investigation into the Skripal suspects which helped uncover the French connection involved intelligence officers from the security service’s department dealing with hostile state activities. Twenty per cent of MI5’s budget is now spent on such investigations, much of it Russia-related. Following the attempt by Unit 29155 to assassinate Mr Skripal who worked as a double agent for MI6, the British government expelled 23 Russian diplomats from the UK. They were all known or suspected GRU officers. “We are confident that they are all gone. It will take a decade for the GRU to attempt to resurge, so we have significantly and generationally dealt with the GRU presence in the UK, “ a security source said. The US sources said collaboration between the various intelligence agencies had had results, pointing to the expulsion of two Russian diplomats after the murder of a Chechen exile in Berlin in broad daylight and Bulgaria's expulsion of a Russian diplomat for espionage.