Vladimir Putin appears to have brought back to life a feared counter-intelligence organisation dating back to the Soviet era.
In the early 1940s, URSS dictator Joseph Stalin created the SMERSH, an umbrella organisation including three independent counter-intelligence forces part of the Red Army.
While the stated aim of this group was to subvert attempts by Nazi Germany to infiltrate the Soviet army, the SMERSH units were far-reaching in their work, tasked with covering counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, investigating traitors and fighting “anti-Soviet elements” among other duties.
The organisation was dismantled in 1946, and much of the Western world became aware of it only through Ian Fleming’s films and books on 007 agent James Bond.
A few weeks ago, Russian politicians claimed the SMERSH had been re-established, seven decades after its disappearance.
This month, the British Ministry of Defence noted that the claim may have been proven correct after “an open-source image showed operatives apparently wearing SMERSH uniform patches”.
The UK MoD wrote in its intelligence assessment on the war in Ukraine: “An abbreviation of the Russian phrase for ‘death to spies’, Joseph Stalin established the original organisation which existed from 1941 to 1946.
“In the West, it became known via its fictionalised portrayal in Ian Fleming’s James Bond books.
“It is unclear whether the new name indicates any substantive new capabilities or role for Russia’s CI function, or whether it is merely a re-badging.”
The British Ministry of Defence noted that the return alone of this group is significant when considering the Russian propaganda surrounding the war against Ukraine.
The assessment read: “However, it provides another example of how the Russian authorities consciously couch the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the spirit of the Second World War, and their strong focus on the supposed infiltration of external threats into the country.”
The “special military operation”, as the invasion of Ukraine continues to be known in Russia, has been justified to Russians by the Kremlin as a defensive move against antagonist forces, including Nazis, who Putin and his allies claim without evidence are being harboured by Kyiv.
Since February 2022, Russian officials, propaganda and the country’s president have tried multiple times to draw parallels between the invasion of Ukraine and the URSS’ fight against Nazi Germany during World War II.
In February last year, speaking at an event marking the 80th anniversary of the Red Army’s victory in Stalingrad, Putin said: “It’s unbelievable but true. We are again being threatened by German Leopard tanks. Again and again we are forced to repel the aggression of the collective west.”
