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The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation - is Russia's external intelligence agency, focusing mainly on civilian affairs. The SVR RF succeeded the First Chief Directorate (PGU) of the KGB in December 1991.The SVR has its headquarters in the Yasenevo District of Moscow.
Unlike the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the SVR is tasked with intelligence and espionage activities outside the Russian Federation. It works together with the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (Russian:, tr. Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye, IPA: , GRU), its military-affairs espionage counterpart, which reportedly deployed six times as many spies in foreign countries as the SVR in 1997.
Any information pertaining to specific identities of staff employees of the SVR is legally classified as a state secret; since September 2018, the same applies to non-staff personnel, i.e. informers and recruited agents.
