Foreign Intelligence Service

Rendered from the Russian Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, the SVR handles espionage beyond Russia's frontiers. It came into being during 1991, the year the Committee for State Security collapsed alongside the Soviet Union itself. As the KGB broke apart, its holdings and ongoing work were parceled out among a handful of successor bodies, and the foreign-intelligence mission passed to this new service. From its base in Moscow, it maintains a presence inside Russian embassies, consulates, and trade posts scattered across the globe.

Modeled on the KGB's old First Chief Directorate, the service is understood to run through a set of specialized directorates and support arms. Directorate S manages deep-cover agents planted around the world, while Directorate T pulls in scientific and technical secrets. Directorate K burrows into rival spy and security agencies and keeps watch over Russians living overseas. On the analytical side, Service I sorts and circulates what the agency's officers collect, issuing a daily digest of events for the Politburo and forecasting where the world is heading. Service A designs and executes active measures, and Service R grades how well operations abroad are going. The organization also holds seats on both the Security Council and the Defense Council and takes part in a range of cross-agency bodies.

Recruits are shaped at the Foreign Intelligence Academy, the service's principal school. Its working backbone consists of eleven geographic departments, each overseeing personnel posted to stations abroad. Those field officers, the rezidenty, work behind legal cover as they gather intelligence, run espionage, and mount active measures. Diplomatic postings are the common disguise, yet the agency leans heavily on journalism as well, a cover many of its officers rate among the finest available.