Military Intelligence Day in Russia and Armenia Date in the current year: November 5, 2024

The main task of military intelligence is to collect, analyze, process and disseminate information that may assist military commanders in making decisions. Military intelligence activities aren’t restricted to wartime; they are conducted at all times (in peacetime, on the brink of hostilities, and during a war itself) and at all levels (strategic, operational and tactical). Most governments maintain both military and civilian intelligence agencies that are supposed to collaborate in order to ensure state security and public safety.

The history of military intelligence in Russia and other former Soviet states dates back to the Russian Revolution. On November 5, 1918, the Revolutionary Military Council approved the creation of the Registration Agency responsible for military intelligence. Three years later, it was transformed into the Intelligence Department of the Red Army Staff. During the following decades, it went through several reorganizations and transformations, until finally, in 1942, the People’s Commissar of Defense established the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army General Staff.

The Main Intelligence Directorate, abbreviated GRU, remained the foreign military intelligence agency of the Soviet Army until the collapse of the Soviet Union. The head of the GRU was accountable at first to the chief of the Soviet Army General Staff and then directly the Minister of Defense of the USSR.

The GRU was tasked with carrying out covert intelligence and sabotage both abroad and in the occupied Soviet territories. The agency was briefly disbanded after World War II, but it was reestablished in 1949. The GRU handled all military intelligence and operated all over the world; it was notorious for its fierce independence from other Soviet intelligence agencies, such as the KGB. In fact, the rivalry between the GRU and the KGB was more intense than that between the FBI and the CIA in the United States.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Main Intelligence Directorate was dissolved. It was replaced by the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces in the Russian Federation. Armenia also initiated the formation of its own intelligence service by means of restructuring its Soviet-era security agencies.

In Russia, the military intelligence is separate from the Federal Security Service (the former is the successor of the GRU and the latter is the successor of the KGB), while in Armenia, all intelligence activities are entrusted to the National Security Service of Armenia that was formed on December 4, 1992. However, both Russia and Armenia celebrate Military Intelligence Day on November 5, commemorating the foundation anniversary of the Registration Agency. This professional holiday is marked with various celebratory events.