Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)

{{subpages}] While it remains a large agency, the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, [phonetic Russian "Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki" or SVR], is a small fraction of its Soviet predecessor, the Committee for State Security (KGB). It took over the functions of the KGB First Chief Directorate, and it is reasonable to assume some of its techniques and organizations.

As of September 2008, the SVR director is Mikhail Yefimovich Fradkov.

Human intelligence and covert action

The Russian foreign intelligence service (SVR) denied allegations by a former intelligence officer, operating under United Nations cover from 1995 to 2000, that Russia was engaged in "subversive activities" Sergei Tretyakov the Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War. A CIA book review, while finding it interesting, did mention several technical errors, not necessarily uncommon in a defector's story to a journalist.

Intelligence Analysis

A frequently reliable source on Russian matters, however, indicates that the SVR, while continuing espionage and other collection techniques, is building an intelligence analysis capability that never really existed in the KGB. Soviet tradition put a great deal of emphasis on raw information gained from clandestine human-source intelligence and signals intelligence, there was very little analysis below the executive level. A small analysis group, on the order of 10 people, had assisted the Chairman of the KGB. In 1991, an Information Analysis Directorate, later the FSB Department of Analysis, Forecasting, and Strategic Planning, was formed from a nucleus of KGB analysts. In 2004, the Department rose to the highest organizational level of Service.