Russian post-war accounting is not going to play out like we within the West may think. We’re accustomed to commissions and legislative investigations after wars and main nationwide safety occasions, usually leading to harsh criticism for varied businesses, and sweeping reforms. In Russia, nevertheless, Putin will largely give the RIS a move.
To grasp why, you will need to perceive the roles the RIS performed within the struggle and within the Russian authorities extra broadly. The SVR (the Overseas Intelligence Service), the GRU (the Predominant Intelligence Directorate – army intelligence), and the FSB (the Federal Safety Service), serve before everything as Putin’s Praetorian Guard. Their major duty is securing his regime and maintain on energy. Furthermore, Putin rose up via the RIS ranks within the KGB, and later held the submit of FSB Director. His emotions towards the RIS are hardly goal. The reputations of Putin and the companies are inextricably linked. Something that considerably tarnishes the extremely cultivated delusion of RIS omnipotence inevitably damages his personal maintain on energy.
If Putin and the “siloviki” (strongmen) who make up his interior circle attempt to name the RIS to account for his or her efficiency when the preventing stops, the one factor all three companies will argue is that the struggle was an absolute success. Every will extoll their roles with little regard for the variety of Russian lives misplaced and army belongings squandered. Going again to Tsarist and Soviet instances, casualties and human struggling have been by no means a mark for a struggle’s success or failure in Russia. The RIS will concentrate on territory gained, Ukraine’s membership in NATO being halted (from their optic), and the alliance, they’ll declare, weakened. They are going to ignore the addition of two succesful new members to the alliance (Finland and Sweden), the doubling of the size of NATO’s border with Russia, and the resuscitation of NATO’s army spending and protection industrial base. Details is not going to cease the RIS from claiming success with Putin. However it’s helpful to additional break down a few of their possible claims, and precise efficiency, by service.
The SVR: “Communicate up Sergey!”
Among the many RIS, and particularly relative to the FSB, Putin has by no means been notably keen on the overseas intelligence service, the SVR. Its claims of success on Ukraine will possible not impress him or the opposite siloviki a lot. Recall Putin’s public dressing down of SVR Director Sergey Naryshkin on Russian TV within the days earlier than the invasion for indecisiveness: “Come on Sergey, communicate up, communicate plainly!” However Sergey didn’t communicate up, nor make a lot of a distinction within the struggle.
Since they don’t have troops or particular ops parts within the struggle (their predominant Spec-Ops crew, ZASLON, is used extra for defense overseas), the SVR will possible attempt to boast of the success of its “energetic measures” operations. That is the normal time period the Russians have used for covert affect and disinformation actions supposed to weaken, confuse, or disrupt their adversaries. Their trendy time period, nevertheless, is to discuss with them as “measures of help” (MS). The SVR has a whole “Directorate MS” dedicated to this line of operational work: utilizing troll farms, social media, cyber operations, and recruited brokers of affect to meddle within the inside politics, public opinion, and elite decision-making of its adversaries to Russia’s benefit. The Russians imagine their energetic measures contributed to their successes within the Georgia invasion in 2008 and occupation of Crimea and elements of the Donbas in 2014. They believed they confused and stunted the West’s response and, to a level, they have been proper.
However the SVR can have bother claiming energetic measures succeeded within the present Ukraine struggle. They are going to maybe attempt to promote Putin that the SVR sowed confusion at essential coverage resolution factors when the U.S. and its European allies weren’t at all times in sync—hesitation in offering this or that weapons system, unity or lack thereof at instances on sanctions, asset seizures, and so forth. Their efforts, nevertheless, didn’t materially alter Russia’s failure to realize its struggle goals. In the event that they have been efficient in any respect, it was solely within the margins. There might be no dramatic accounting for the SVR however count on to see the SVR’s relative affect decline among the many RIS, a continuation of development since Putin’s rise to energy.
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GRU: Plowed into the Grinder, and Re-Particular Purposed
The GRU will possible level to the varied sabotage acts, carried out in Europe after the invasion, some profitable however most not, together with exploding packages, industrial arson, cable cuts within the Baltic Sea, and assassinations, or makes an attempt at them. These are the purview of the GRU and its varied numbered models, comparable to Unit 29155, which was behind each the tried assassination of GRU defector Sergey Skripal within the UK in 2018, and sure additionally the thwarted assassination plot in opposition to the CEO of Germany’s Rheinmetall in 2024. The Lithuanian authorities is satisfied the GRU additionally was behind the crash of a DHL aircraft that very same yr. However these actions failed of their major mission, to intimidate and deter Europe and NATO from helping Ukraine. If something, the actions have solely emboldened members to proceed help for Ukraine.
One other surprising GRU failure, one closely criticized in Russia’s pro-war blogosphere however receiving much less consideration within the West, was its squandering of treasured, extremely skilled Spetsnaz models on the Ukrainian battlefield. There are 9 Spetsnaz, or “Particular Function,” brigades beneath the GRU’s 14th Directorate (roughly analogous to Tier 1 parts within the U.S. SOCOM). Practically all have been closely deployed in Ukraine, and all suffered extraordinarily heavy casualties. The deliberate decapitation strike in opposition to the Ukrainian management within the first days of the struggle, spearheaded by Spetsnaz models, was a whole and dear failure (the failed seizure of Hostomel airport was a part of this). Many Spetsnaz have been additionally used foolishly in frontal assaults and to plug gaps in ahead traces when Russian “kontraktniki” (paid troopers, however usually supplemented in frontline models with conscripts) failed. GRU Spetsnaz have a storied historical past and tradition. Will probably be exhausting for them to get better the fame for being “elite” with out notable successes to level to in Ukraine. They didn’t impression the course of the struggle in any important manner.
As with the SVR, the GRU will possible keep away from any dramatic adverse penalties. There’ll in all probability be some modest reorganizations, simply as there have been because the collapse of the us. Actually, the GRU is technically not even known as the GRU any longer. It was formally redesignated the “GU” (Predominant Directorate), though many cussed officers nonetheless discuss with themselves as “GRU-chniki.” One reorganization has already occurred because the struggle started, the standup of one thing known as the Division for Particular Duties (SSD). Its operate and actual composition are nonetheless not absolutely recognized, nevertheless it seems to mix varied Russian-termed “direct actions” (e.g., assassinations, sabotage) models, comparable to Unit 29155, right into a unified construction. The SSD is broadly equal to the CIA’s Particular Actions Middle when it comes to covert motion, however dwarfs it in dimension (and the CIA is certain by regulation to not perform assassinations). The GRU is a mammoth paperwork and it’ll possible solely develop extra after the struggle.
FSB: Failed, However Nonetheless Putin’s Favourite
Regardless of their many failures, there might be few important adverse penalties for the FSB, which Putin as soon as ran. In some ways, although, the FSB’s shortcomings in Ukraine have been essentially the most egregious and consequential. The FSB was in command of the struggle’s planning, notably the hybrid dimensions, or what Russian doctrine refers to extra broadly as “non-contact struggle.” The FSB’s lead for the Ukraine invasion was its Fifth Service, which heads up each operational evaluation and reporting to the President on the struggle. The FSB has organizational primacy for RIS operations within the “close to overseas,” i.e., the states of the previous USSR, together with Ukraine. Within the pre-war planning part, the Fifth Service was incorrect about every thing: incorrect about Ukrainian resilience, incorrect about how shortly and considerably Europe and NATO would react, and incorrect concerning the FSB and Russian Armed Forces’ capabilities on the bottom.
FSB Spetsnaz models Alpha and Vympel all participated within the struggle, however like their GRU cousins, they haven’t distinguished themselves. Nonetheless they’re nonetheless continuously lauded within the Russian press for “actions that can’t be disclosed.” The FSB additionally has the lead for cyber operations in opposition to Ukraine with its sixteenth Middle, however these cyber-attacks haven’t materially altered the course of the struggle in Russia’s favor. The battle over bytes was not gained in any manner by Russian FSB hackers, whose ranks have been bolstered by Russian felony teams hacking for the state and their coffers.
The FSB will possible be the RIS company most affected by the struggle. However as an alternative of accountability for failure, its energy and affect will possible solely develop. First, due to all of the companies, the FSB, in its secret police function, is the essential participant in securing Putin’s rule. Within the bureaucratic pecking order, the FSB sits on the very prime and can stay there. FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov holds the army rank of full Common, and he’s handled as such by Russian army generals, regardless of by no means having served within the army. Second, if there’s a formal investigation or after-action when the preventing stops, the FSB will lead it, simply because it did within the investigations of the 2002 Nord-Ost theater terrorist assault, the 2004 college seizure in Beslan, and the more moderen Crocus Metropolis Corridor terrorist assault in 2024, every of which concerned breathtaking intelligence and operational failures, however didn’t have important adverse repercussions for the FSB. The FSB pretends to wash up after it performs incompetently.
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In conclusion, the one factor the West can rely on is that the Russian companies will proceed to relentlessly compete with and back-stab each other. There isn’t any “intelligence group” in Russia remotely just like the one we’ve in the US. The rivalries inside our group pale as compared. This presents alternatives to recruit personnel from all of the RIS companies, lots of whom can have misplaced colleagues within the struggle for a trigger and for leaders whose competence an growing variety of them will come to doubt. This and the pervasive corruption in Russia are nonetheless sturdy incentives for espionage in opposition to those that have led Russia down this disastrous path.
The RIS is not going to forestall one other struggle for Russia; if something, they’ll foment one. Earlier than they do, the US and our allies should perceive these failures, but additionally, and critically, the Russian companies’ possible self-evaluation and the teachings they themselves will draw, or fail to attract, from these classes. When the present struggle ends, Putin might plan one other intervention or aggression–in Europe, once more in Ukraine, or elsewhere. Earlier than he does, we should be able to counter the following iteration of the FSB, GRU, and SVR techniques to encourage and help struggle. We will higher accomplish that by finding out their playbook and a few of their tried actions, and dramatic failures.
All statements of reality, opinion, or evaluation expressed are these of the writer and don’t replicate the official positions or views of the US Authorities. Nothing within the contents must be construed as asserting or implying US Authorities authentication of knowledge or endorsement of the writer’s views.
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