The Long, Dark History of

artappraiser — Thu, 26 Dec 2019 00:43:40 +0000

In reply to How a Poisoning in Bulgaria Exposed Russian Assassins in Europe

The Long, Dark History of Russia’s Murder, Inc.

By Michael Weiss @ NYRDaily @ nybooks.com, Dec. 18

The last fortnight has seen new revelations in two separate cases of suspected Russian state murder. In one of these cases, the alleged hit squad was directly a unit of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service. In the other, German authorities recently concluded that there is “sufficient evidence” that the Russian state, or its federated southern republic Chechnya, is responsible for the execution-style killing of an ethnic Chechen asylum-seeker; as a result, two officers of the GRU have been expelled from the Russian embassy in Berlin. According to the newspaper Le Monde, citing French intelligence, the GRU has for several years maintained a rear base of operations in the Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps.

The GRU, also responsible for interfering in the 2016 US presidential election, is now believed to have been liquidating the enemies of President Vladimir Putin throughout Europe, including in NATO countries. The idea of a roving gang of secret-agent assassins gathering at an Alpine retreat to plot the destruction of their sinister leader’s enemies might seem like the premise for Daniel Craig’s latest outing as 007, but this plotline has historical antecedents long predating Ian Fleming.

A fine and timely new book explores the origins of Moscow’s Murder, Inc.— what is euphemistically known in Russian as mokroye delo, or “wet work.” In The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia’s Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad, authors Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan show that what has become the institutional practice of Moscow’s security organs was honed in the early decades of Soviet government, when it perfected its methods against members of the Russian diaspora [....]

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The Long, Dark History of