GRU (Main Intelligence Agency), Russia

The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, abbreviated G.U., formerly the Main Intelligence Directorate and still commonly known by its previous abbreviation GRU (Russian: ГРУ, IPA: [ɡeeˈru]), is the foreign military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Unlike Russia’s other security and intelligence agencies, such as the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Federal Security Service (FSB), and the Federal Protective Service (FSO), whose heads report directly to the president of Russia, the director of the GRU is subordinate to the Russian military command, reporting to the Minister of Defence and the Chief of the General Staff. Until 2010, and again from 2013 onwards, the GRU controlled the military intelligence service and the GRU special forces.
The directorate is reputedly Russia’s largest foreign-intelligence agency. According to unverified statements by Stanislav Lunev, a defector from the GRU, in 1997 the agency deployed six times as many agents in foreign countries as the SVR. It also commanded some 25,000 Spetsnaz troops as of 1997.