Even after the swap, he was able to damage the G.R.U.’s infrastructure. In 2012, he visited intelligence officers in the Czech Republic who had long felt vulnerable in the face of Russia’s unusually large intelligence presence in the country. Mr. Skripal, who stayed for a long, boozy lunch, was able to help, said a European official.
“In fact, Skripal was able to describe what types of operations they had, how they cover up their people, how they build their teams,” the official said. “He didn’t have to be concrete, to give up concrete names. It contributed to improving our work.”
Over the months that followed, a number of Russian diplomats were expelled from the Czech Republic on suspicion of spying. Mr. Skripal “may have contributed some part of the puzzle” that led to the expulsions, the official said. “Whether he caused them, nobody can tell you.”
In interviews, several former Russian intelligence agents were skeptical that the G.R.U. was behind the attack on the Skripals, in part because of its audacity.
In Soviet times, their more cosmopolitan K.G.B. colleagues referred to G.R.U. officers as “sapogi,” or boots, suggesting that they were tough and rugged but not sophisticated in their methods, said Yuri B. Shvets, a former K.G.B. agent posted to Washington in the 1980s.
“The G.R.U. took its officers from the trenches,” he said, unlike the K.G.B., which recruited from top universities.
Irek Murtazin, who worked closely with the G.R.U. and now covers military affairs for Novaya Gazeta, said that the agency’s assassinations tended to be unshowy affairs.
Source : Nytimes
