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Utopia Talk / Politics / Amateurs
McKobb
Member
Tue Oct 09 11:48:41
http://www...ys-growing-clout-idUSKCN1MJ1MP

Espionage scandals show Russian army's growing clout

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s military spies are being mocked abroad as bunglers but the army’s influence over Kremlin foreign policy is growing and there is little likelihood it will halt its “black operations”.

The GRU military intelligence agency is blamed by the West for several botched attacks this year, including attempting to kill former spy Sergei Skripal with a nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury and trying to hack the global chemical weapons watchdog in the Netherlands.

Russia’s denials of wrongdoing have at times caused incredulous laughter in the West and some of the world’s media have cast the GRU, which helped annex the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, as blundering amateurs.

But Western intelligence experts and Russian sources familiar with policy-making in the Kremlin say the West must stay on its guard.

“It’s easy to laugh at some of the GRU’s poor tradecraft and their ability but we should not underestimate them nor indeed the dangerous and reckless use of nerve agent on our streets,” British Security Minister Ben Wallace told a security conference in Britain on Tuesday.

Intelligence experts say the GRU has stepped up its activities including black operations - covert missions that are not attributable to the organization carrying it out - as tensions mount between Russia and the West, which has imposed sanctions on Moscow over the annexation of Crimea.
Rugian
Member
Tue Oct 09 11:50:28
Stop trying to ruin jerguls day Mckobb.
Seb
Member
Tue Oct 09 12:07:01
Rufián, weren't you pedalling Kremlin lines on this: "it's all a plot to distract from Brexit"?
jergul
large member
Tue Oct 09 18:32:01
So GRU bungling will be right up there with CIA incompetence. Yay.

The leap from there to blaming Putin personally is interesting. In a Reagan tried to kill Castro kind of way.

Try not to be so gay, m'kay?

Seb
Yah, the balance of probability points to Skripal being Russian intelligence. I became jergulmath certain after Putin calling Skripal scum. I read it to mean Putin is now fully updated on that little project and is putting his weight behind protecting the GRU

They are at war after all.
jergul
large member
Tue Oct 09 18:33:53
Protecting the GRU from internal Russian power plays. The West is irrelevant (there is nothing Putin could do that would normalize relations).
jergul
large member
Tue Oct 09 18:35:25
The skripal affair being a GRU stunt.
Seb
Member
Tue Oct 09 18:42:33
jergul:

If Putin smiles retrospectively on using chemical weapons, it's no different to him ordering it.

He should let power plays pan out - incompetent and rogue organisations need to have their wings clipped.

jergul
large member
Tue Oct 09 21:17:05
Seb
I don't see him smiling.

The GU is huge and not under direct presidential control. If you were looking for a deep state...

The background for the poisoning may have been organizational turf fighting. The FSB arrested Skripal and supplied prosecuters with their case. It also arranged the swap deal.

GU has basically upended the FSB's approach to the rules of espionage.
jergul
large member
Tue Oct 09 21:18:02
"Make any deal you want with FSB, foreigners or God almighter himself. We will still get you".
jergul
large member
Tue Oct 09 21:18:25
almighty*
Seb
Member
Wed Oct 10 08:10:33
Jergul:

If I were Putin then, I'd view that as dangerous.

If this was a rogue opp, it's cost the economy hugely and helped box in Trump's overtures and Italy and Greece a moves to loosen EU sanctions which is surely not worth skripal or the general message.

I'd let the institutional politics reign the GRU in that are a bit. Focus on core competencies.

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