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Britain
Inside Putin's sinister spy-killing GRU unit that boasts nuclear suitcase bombs, helped bring down MH17 and plotted Novichok poisonings
2018-09-08
[FOX] They have been accused of assassinating Russia's enemies on foreign soil and helping shoot down passenger jets filled with families.

Now the GRU, Vladimir Putin's not-so-secret military intelligence agency, has been roundly blamed for the nerve agent attack on former comrade Sergey Skripal in Salisbury.

Russian agents Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were seen smiling on CCTV hours before the alleged hit on Sergei Skripal, himself an ex-GRU operative, and his daughter Yulia in March.

It is rumored the bureau, which recruits only the most patriotic young soldiers from poor backgrounds, has nuclear suitcase bombs stashed around the US and helped bring down MH17.

Not only are they trained to gather top secret information on its rivals, its agents have been accused of creating "death squads" to assassinate its enemies on foreign soil.

Here, we delve deeper into its murkiest operations, psychotic recruitment process and assassination attempts of the GRU.

The GRU, officially known as the Main Intelligence Directorate, is the arm of the Russian Defense Ministry tasked with gathering what some experts refer to as "battlefield intelligence".
Posted by:Besoeker

#9  We’ve discussed the threat of suitcase nukes here quite q few times over the years. One such discussion can be perused here.
Posted by: trailing wife   2018-09-08 22:59  

#8  Suitcase nukes. Yeah, yeah.
Shortly before I rejoined the civilian world in the 70's, I got 'briefed in' on the MK54 manpack , aka the Davy Crockett manpack. (One more reason to get out...)
It was actually a warhead from a Crockett recoiless nuke rocket, with a triggering control and timer (I wanted to know if it came with a bottle of whisky, but...). Supposedly for airborne insertion or stay behinds in Europe if it went down.
I recall a critical point they harped on was that because it was a small bomb, the critical mass unit was made from very highly enriched material (to keep size down), and as such half life decay gave you a shelf life of 10 years. After that, it might not work.
It's why we have a recycling plant at Pantex outside Amarillo, to re-refine the U or Pl back into a reliable product. As it is, there is a definite lower limit to the mass required in a nuke, and it continuously degrades.
Posted by: ed in texas   2018-09-08 21:30  

#7  KGB - GRU - what about the FSB? Get current!
Posted by: Blackbeard Omereling5004   2018-09-08 18:58  

#6  #4 Mike:
Yeah, I was wondering: Why not use Smersh?
Posted by: Frozen Al 2018-09-08 11:42

Al,

For all its fame (or infamy) SMERSH had a very short lifespan - from just after the German invasion of the USSR to about the Japanese surrender, at which point it was folded into one of the agencies which eventually became the KGB.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2018-09-08 13:59  

#5  Superseded by SPECTRE?
Posted by: Bobby   2018-09-08 11:47  

#4  Mike:
Yeah, I was wondering: Why not use Smersh?
Posted by: Frozen Al   2018-09-08 11:42  

#3  #2 And assassinated Julius Caesar, and crucified Jesus?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2018-09-08 10:50


...And did it before lunch.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2018-09-08 11:39  

#2  And assassinated Julius Caesar, and crucified Jesus?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2018-09-08 10:50  

#1  ...Hmmm. IIRC, back in the day, between them and the KGB they were the more practical and stable of the two.

Practical and stable being purely relative terms, you understand.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2018-09-08 09:52  

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