New blow to Russian spying unit as more agents exposed

The Russian military spying agency has had its inner workings exposed again as determined journalists and Kremlin critics continue to focus on uncovering its secrets.

A new report details the alleged misbehaviour and bizarre bureaucratic decisions that allowed a Russian journalist to identify people he says are GRU officers.

Sergei Kanev said he wants to call attention to problems within an organisation he believes has moved from traditional spying into unchecked violence and foreign interference.

But his story portrays the agency as more sloppy than scary: one finding was that suspected GRU agents appeared to blow their own covers.

None of the few dozen agents he wrote about is suspected of grave wrongdoing, but governments in multiple countries have implicated GRU agents in the March nerve agent attack on a Russian ex-spy in Britain, hacking the 2016 US presidential campaign, involvement in downing a Malaysian plane and disrupting anti-doping efforts.

Russian authorities deny the accusations, calling them part of a global smear campaign.

Mr Kanev said he identified three agents after they filed police reports for stolen goods, by cross-checking names with databases showing addresses or other information on GRU employees.

Another was identified after being arrested over a cafe shootout.

The report also said the Russian Defence Ministry sought to conceal the identities of dozens of children of alleged GRU officers living in a Moscow housing complex by adding 100 years to their ages in administrative registries.

GRU agents jokingly called it the “old folks’ home”, Mr Kanev said.

Pension authorities raised alarm after discovering the apparent concentration of very elderly residents, suspecting some kind of fraud.

Mr Kanev, who lives in self-imposed exile in Europe, told the Associated Press he uncovered the identities by using databases purchased on the black market from Moscow police, traffic officers or security agents.

He said he cross-checked them with open sources and discussions with security sources. Other Russian journalists have described using similar methods.

His reporting was funded and published by Kremlin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Dossier Project, and also released by Russian independent broadcaster Dozhd TV.

The details of the report could not be immediately verified, but it fits with a pattern of embarrassing exposures that has caused some to question the GRU’s professionalism — and highlighted corruption that has allowed leaks to occur.

Last month, British intelligence released surveillance images of GRU agents accused of the March attack in Salisbury.

Investigative group Bellingcat and Russian site The Insider quickly exposed the agents’ real names, and the Associated Press and others revealed details about their backgrounds.

Dutch authorities recently identified four alleged GRU agents who tried to hack the WiFi of the world’s chemical weapons watchdog from a hotel car park.

All this makes it look like GRU officers “can’t tie their own shoelaces”, said Michael Kofman, an expert on Russian military affairs at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre in Washington.

In an interview with the AP, Mr Kanev said he also identified 16 GRU officers who once lived in the same Moscow dormitory as Anatoly Chepiga, one of the officers suspected of poisoning turncoat GRU agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. Mr Kanev did not publish their names.

He said the fact he could identify so many officers was a sign that “Russia is eroding”.

Keir Giles, the director of the Conflict Studies Research Centre in Cambridge, warned that exposing Russian spies who are not accused of serious wrongdoing exposes Mr Kanev and his backer, oligarch-turned-dissident Mr Khodorkovsky, “to charges that instead of reforming Russia, they just want to harm it”.

Meanwhile, the drip-drip of revelations will continue to dent the image of the GRU, but not deter it from unsavoury actions, experts said.