Russia
Three principal successors to the Soviet KGB — the FSB (domestic), the SVR (foreign), and the GRU/GU (military) — operating under direct presidential authority with limited civilian oversight.
The Russian Federation's principal intelligence services are direct successors to the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB), divided after 1991 into separate civilian domestic and foreign components plus the long-standing military service. The Federal Security Service (FSB) inherited the KGB's internal security mandate and absorbed signals-intelligence functions in 2003 with the abolition of FAPSI. The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) took over the foreign-intelligence mission of the KGB First Chief Directorate. The Main Directorate of the General Staff — formally renamed the GU in 2010 but commonly still called the GRU — continued the Soviet-era military-intelligence service that traces its lineage to 1918.
The FSB and SVR report directly to the President of the Russian Federation and are each led by a presidential appointee; the GU/GRU sits within the Ministry of Defence chain of command but operates under presidential authority through the Security Council. The services do not have parliamentary oversight on the model of comparable Western services; the principal external public-record judicial scrutiny — historically through the European Court of Human Rights — ended with Russia's expulsion from the Council of Europe in March 2022. The post-2014 period of operations in Ukraine, the post-2018 period of Western government attribution for cyber and direct-action operations, and the post-February 2022 invasion of Ukraine have produced an unprecedented volume of public-record material on Russian state intelligence activity.
Federal Security Service (FSB)
The Russian Federation's principal domestic security and counter-intelligence service, successor to the KGB and headquartered at the Lubyanka in Moscow.
Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR)
The Russian Federation's foreign intelligence service, direct successor to the KGB First Chief Directorate and headquartered at Yasenevo, southwest of Moscow.
GRU Unit 26165 (85th Main Special Service Centre) (GRU 26165)
The 85th Main Special Service Centre of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate — the GRU's principal computer-network-exploitation and influence-operations unit. Indicted by the United States Department of Justice in July 2018 for the 2016 Democratic National Committee intrusion; tracked across the threat-intelligence industry as Fancy Bear, APT28, Forest Blizzard, and several other vendor labels.
GRU Unit 74455 (Main Centre for Special Technologies) (GRU 74455)
The Main Centre for Special Technologies of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate — the GRU's destructive-cyber-operations unit. Responsible for the BlackEnergy / Industroyer attacks on the Ukrainian electricity grid, the NotPetya wiper attack of June 2017, the 2018 Olympic Destroyer attack against the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics opening, and VPNFilter. Indicted by the United States Department of Justice in October 2020 for six named officers.
Main Directorate of the General Staff (GU (GRU))
Russia's military-intelligence service, formally renamed the Main Directorate (GU) of the General Staff in 2010 but continuing in popular and journalistic use as the GRU. Subject to extensive Western-government attribution for cyber and direct-action operations since 2014.
SVR cyber operations (SVR cyber)
The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation's principal computer-network-exploitation effort — the cyber-collection arm responsible for the 2014–15 White House and State Department intrusions, the 2016 Democratic National Committee initial access, the 2020 SolarWinds / SUNBURST supply-chain compromise, and the 2020–21 COVID-19 vaccine-research collection campaign. Publicly attributed to the SVR by the United States and United Kingdom in April 2021.
How to read a country page
This is the institutional landscape of Russia's intelligence apparatus as it is documented in the public record. Each card above links through to a full agency profile — the service's founding date, statutory basis, jurisdiction, parent ministry, headquarters, official channels, and a structured account of role, history, and notable operations footnoted to primary sources. The agencies on this page may overlap institutionally (a foreign-intelligence service and a signals-intelligence service often share missions and personnel) and may operate against one another in counter-intelligence terms; the country page does not impose a hierarchy among them, only an inventory.
If a particular operation or scandal is what you are looking for rather than the institutional background, see the Dossiers — long-form pieces that cross agencies and countries. The methodology page documents how operations are categorised as confirmed, alleged, or disputed, and what the public record can and cannot tell us. The Lexicon defines the terms that recur across these pages — HUMINT, SIGINT, covert action, plausible deniability, station, asset, finding.
Coverage here grows as new declassifications expand what can responsibly be said about services that remain partly closed. Some agencies have full reference entries; others are stub entries pending the full treatment. Stubs are kept on the index so navigation between related services is preserved while the detailed text is written.
