Russian Federation has created a new spy unit for war against the West

Russia's spy service has a new shadowy unit that targets the West and carries out covert attacks on the territory of Europe and other countries. This is according to The Wall Street Journal newspaper with reference to representatives of Western intelligence.

The new unit is called the Department of Special Tasks, which is based in the headquarters of Russian military intelligence on the outskirts of Moscow. The new department, known to representatives of Western intelligence under the acronym SSD. Its specialists are trained to kill, commit sabotage and conspire to plant explosive devices in aircraft. Specialists from the department are believed to have attempted to assassinate the chief executive of a German arms manufacturer and to have been involved in a plot to plant incendiary devices on aircraft used by transport giant DHL.

The department was set up in 2023 in response to Western support for Ukraine," the newspaper said.

The Kremlin believes that without the West's help, Ukraine would not have been able to eliminate war criminals on Russian territory, and therefore Moscow intends to retaliate.

Russia believes that it is in conflict with what it calls the "collective West" and acts accordingly, up to threatening the West with a nuclear attack and building up its army," a NATO representative, the newspaper's interlocutor, said.

It is pointed out that the representatives of the Department have already tried to recruit agents from Ukraine, developing countries and countries considered friendly to Russia, such as Serbia, more than once .

According to Western intelligence, the unit is headed by Colonel-General Andrey Averyanov and Lieutenant-General Ivan Kasyanenko. Czech police are known to be searching for Averyanov, a participant in the Russian-Chechen war, on suspicion of carrying out an operation to blow up an ammunition depot in 2014.

The SSD operates under Putin's direction, but its commanders may not seek approval for specific operations, Western officials said.

They note that the department was active last summer but that its agents have now gone quiet. Perhaps, the West believes, to create diplomatic space for Moscow in negotiations with the new U.S. administration.