Foreign Intelligence Service

The Foreign Intelligence Service, known by its Russian acronym SVR, is Russia's primary civilian external intelligence agency. It was established on December 18, 1991, by President Boris Yeltsin, succeeding the First Chief Directorate of the Soviet KGB and inheriting its global espionage networks and assets. The SVR's headquarters are located in the Yasenevo District of Moscow, with a secondary facility on Ostozhenka Street. The director reports directly to the President of Russia.

The SVR focuses on foreign intelligence collection, including human intelligence (HUMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), and political-military analysis. Unlike the military intelligence agency GRU, which is larger and handles defense-related operations, the SVR concentrates on strategic espionage, cyber-espionage, and covert influence campaigns. It produces finished intelligence reports for the Russian president and negotiates intelligence-sharing agreements with foreign governments, particularly on counterterrorism. By 1997, the GRU had six times as many spies deployed abroad as the SVR.

Information about SVR staff officers is classified as a state secret. Since September 2018, that protection has extended to non-staff personnel, including agents, informants, and co-optees. The SVR has been implicated in several high-profile controversies, including the 2016 U.S. election interference, the SolarWinds supply-chain attack (attributed to APT29/Cozy Bear), and the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in 2018. In 2023-2024, the agency has been heavily involved in intelligence operations related to the war in Ukraine, including recruiting agents and conducting sabotage, leading to the expulsion of dozens of suspected SVR officers from Western countries.[edit]