- Russia is re-forming an infamous Stalinist counterintelligence unit, UK intelligence said.
- SMERSH was used during the Communist era to catch spies.
- The Kremlin has intensified its search for dissidents and perceived traitors.
Russia has re-established the infamous Stalin-era counterintelligence unit SMERSH that was used to catch spies and dissidents, UK intelligence said.
The unit, whose name is an acronym for "death to spies", was formed by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin as a specialist counter-intelligence unit in 1941.
"In late 2023, Russian politicians claimed that the Soviet counter-intelligence (CI) organisation 'Smersh' was being re-established," the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.
"In early January 2024, an open-source image showed operatives apparently wearing Smersh uniform patches," it said.
It noted that the unit became infamous after its inclusion in Ian Fleming's James Bond spy novels, such as "From Russia With Love" and its 1963 movie spin-off starring Sean Connery. It had been disbanded though by the time Fleming started writing the books.
The MoD noted that it's unclear if the resurrected SMERSH is a new unit, or the new name of an existing unit rebranded for propaganda purposes.
Its renewal, the MoD said, was an example of how the Kremlin is seeking to portray the Ukraine War "in the spirit of the Second World War" and the Kremlin's obsession with "infiltration of external threats into the country."
The unit was originally formed to combat Nazi infiltration in the Red Army during World War II, and repress dissent and insurgency in territory occupied by the Soviet Union in East Europe and Germany.
It was renowned for its brutality, executing thousands of people accused, rightly or wrongly, of being traitors to Russia.
It was SMERSH operatives who discovered Adolf Hitler's remains after he committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin in 1945 as the Red Army drew closer.
Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Putin has sought to boost public support for the war by portraying it as a fight for survival against the forces of NATO that he claims are determined to undermine and destroy Russia.
The Russian president has been creating an atmosphere of paranoia some critics have likened to the Stalin era.
Russia has clamped down on criticism of the war and introduced stiffer penalties for military deserters.