Russia has a dedicated spy unit to destabilize Europe, Western officials claim

October 9, 2019 by Joseph Fitsanakis

Russian intelligence maintains an elite spy unit whose sole goal is to run operations that have the potential to subvert European political and economic systems, according to a new report by The New York Times. The unit is behind a string of intelligence operations in recent years, which range from espionage to disinformation campaigns and even assassinations.

The Times cited “four Western officials” who said that the group is known as Unit 29155 and operates within the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, commonly known as GRU. It has allegedly been in existence for at least 10 years, but it only recently appeared on the radar of Western intelligence agencies. The latter began to take note of Unit 29155 in 2016, after it was alleged that an elite unit of Russian spies tried to stage a coup in the tiny Balkan country of Montenegro. The former Yugoslav Republic was seeking to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization at the time. It was claimed that the Russian intelligence operatives carried out a failed attempt to kill its prime minister and instigate a pro-Russian coup.

According to the paper, Western intelligence officials do not have a clear picture of the structure of Unit 29155, nor are they able to predict where it will strike next. But they believe that it consists of a very tightly knit group of intelligence officers led by Major General Andrei V. Averyanov, a hardened veteran of Russia’s Chechen wars. The existence of the unit is so secret that even other GRU operatives are unlikely to have heard of it, said The Times. Members of the unit frequently travel to Europe to carry out sabotage and disinformation campaigns, kill targets, or conduct other forms of what some experts describe as the Kremlin’s hybrid war. They tend to travel on the cheap, in order to economize and avoid attention, said the paper.

The Times said it reached out to the Kremlin with a number of questions about Unit 29155. It received a response from Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov, who suggested that the questions be directed instead to Russia’s Defense Ministry. But the ministry did not return any messages.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 09 October 2019 | Permalink