The Wall Street Journal, citing Western intelligence officials, has reported that Russian secret services operate a new shadow unit that targets the West and conducts covert attacks across Europe and other countries.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Quote: "Known as the Department of Special Tasks, it is based in the Russian military-intelligence headquarters, a sprawling glass-and-steel complex on the outskirts of Moscow known as the aquarium. Its operations, which haven’t been previously reported, have included attempted killings, sabotage and a plot to put incendiary devices on planes."

Details: Unnamed officials told the WSJ that the department's creation signals Moscow's wartime stance against the West.

The sources revealed that the department was created in 2023 in response to Western support for Ukraine and "includes veterans of some of Russia’s most daring clandestine operations in recent years".

The sources say the Kremlin views the West as complicit in Ukraine’s attacks on Russia, particularly in the Nord Stream pipeline explosion, assassinations of high-ranking officials in Moscow and strikes involving long-range Western missiles.

"Russia believes it is in conflict with what it calls 'the collective West', and is acting accordingly, up to and including threatening us with nuclear attack and building up its military," said James Appathurai, NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Innovation, Hybrid and Cyber.

Western intelligence officials believe the newly identified department, known to them by its Russian acronym SSD, has orchestrated multiple recent attacks on the West, including an attempt on the life of a German arms manufacturer’s CEO and a plot to place incendiary devices on planes used by shipping giant DHL.

The SSD has united various factions of Russia’s intelligence services, taking over certain powers from the FSB, the country’s largest intelligence agency, and absorbing Unit 29155, which Western intelligence and law enforcement agencies believe was responsible for the 2018 poisoning of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in the UK.

Western intelligence officials say the SSD has at least three main objectives: executing assassinations and sabotage abroad, infiltrating Western companies and universities, and recruiting and training foreign agents. The department has made attempts to recruit agents from Ukraine, developing nations and countries with close ties to Russia, such as Serbia. Additionally, the SSD operates an elite special operations centre, Senezh, where Russia trains some of its special forces.

The WSJ noted that Colonel General Andrei Averyanov and his deputy, Lieutenant General Ivan Kasianenko, are in charge of the department. Czech police are seeking Averyanov on suspicion of involvement in a 2014 operation to blow up an ammunition depot.

The WSJ writes that in December, the European Union imposed sanctions on a unit of the department, without specifying the name SSD, for organising "coups, assassinations, bombings and cyberattacks" in Europe and other countries.

In December, the US indicted SSD members on similar charges. The US Department of State is offering a reward of up to US$10 million for any information about the five members accused of cyberattacks on Ukraine.

"Hostile activities by the SSD peaked last summer, but have subsided recently, according to US and European officials. The lull in activity could be aimed at creating diplomatic space for Moscow to negotiate with the new US administration, according to the two European intelligence chiefs," The WSJ notes.

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