The SVR (
Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki) is the
Russian name for their Foreign Intelligence Service. It was the first element of the
KGB to establish its own, separate identity, initially as the Central Intelligence Service (
Centralnaya Sluzhbza Razvedkyin or
CSR) in October 1991, but in December of the same year it changed to the current monicker of the SVR. It incorporates most of the foreign
operations, intelligence-gathering and
intelligence analysis activities of the
KGB First Chief Directorate. SVR intelligence activity also includes monitoring possible
scientific breakthroughs which might radically change the Russian
security situation, as well as determining those areas in which the
actions of
foreign states' special services and organizations might damage Russian interests.
The first head of the SVR was Yevgeni Primakov who was moved from his role as first deputy chairman of the USSR Committee of State Security (KGB) and chief of the KGB's First Directorate to the position by Boris Yeltsin in December 1991. He was recently replaced by his deputy Col. Gen. Vyacheslav Trubnikov .