Editing Crocus hall terror attack (section)

==GUR as a branch of CIA==
{{See also|Central Intelligence Agency#Maidan regime}}

''[[The Washington Post]]'' reported that from 2015 on the [[CIA]] embarked on an extensive transformation of Ukrainian military intelligence, the [[GUR]]. Unlike its American counterpart the [[DIA]], the GUR is not simply an information gathering and analytical organization, but is also engaged in covert activities (or active measures) such as murder, political assassinations, bombings, etc.  
[[File:Budanov.PNG|right|250px|thumb|38 year old GUR head [[Kyrylo Budanov]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20230105152355/https://kurtnimmo.substack.com/p/ukraines-intelligence-boss-predicts Ukraine’s Intelligence Boss Predicts Further Attacks Deep Inside Russia], Kurt Nimmo, January 3, 2023. </ref> Due to his youth and personal ambition, Budanov quickly gained a reputation for reckless exuberance. By May 2023 Budanov was the prime target of the Russian Investigative Committees [[denazification]] program for his [[terrorist]] activities.]]
With fewer than 5,000 employees, the GUR was a fraction of the size of the SBU and had a narrower focus on espionage and active measures operations against Russia.<ref>[https://archive.ph/RMFzQ#selection-1881.181-1881.377 Ukrainian spies with deep ties to CIA wage shadow war against Russia], By Greg Miller and Isabelle Khurshudyan, ''Washington Post'', October 23, 2023</ref> It also had a younger workforce with fewer holdovers from [[Soviet]] times, while the [[Security Service of Ukraine]] (SBU) was still perceived as penetrated by Russian intelligence. 

The CIA helped the GUR acquire state-of-the-art [[surveillance]] and electronic eavesdropping systems, including mobile equipment that could be placed along Russian-controlled lines in eastern Ukraine, but also software tools used to exploit the [[cellphone]]s of [[Kremlin]] officials visiting outside of Moscow. Ukrainian officers operated the systems but everything gleaned was shared with the [[American]]s.

Concerned that the GUR’s aging facilities were likely compromised by Russian intelligence, the CIA paid for new headquarters buildings for the GUR’s "[[spetsnaz]]" [[paramilitary]] division and a separate directorate responsible for electronic [[espionage]]. Troves of data were relayed through the new CIA-built facility back to [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]], where they were scrutinized by CIA and [[NSA]] analysts.

The GUR had also developed networks of sources in Russia’s security apparatus. The CIA was permitted to have direct contact with agents recruited and run by Ukrainian intelligence.

The modern-day GUR is a product of the CIA, which shared with its protégés everything that it learned waging the ongoing [[hybrid war]] on [[Syria]], not to mention CIA terrorist contacts as well. It was through this meticulous cultivation that GUR chief [[Kirill Budanov]] obtained his bloodlust that was on full display in spring 2023 when he declared that “we’ve been killing Russians and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.”<ref>[https://news.yahoo.com/we-will-keep-killing-russians-ukraines-military-intelligence-chief-vows-232156674.html 'We will keep killing Russians,' Ukraine's military intelligence chief vows], Michael Weiss and James Rushton, May 5, 2023. news.yahoo.com</ref> For as lethal as the GUR has become over the past decade, it’s still a CIA knockoff, which is why it’s expected to make sloppy mistakes on occasion.

===GUR mistakes in the attack===
GUR/NATO's first mistake was recruiting people who weren’t ready to fight to the death at the scene of the attack. This led to the culprits being captured and spilling the beans about how they were recruited in exchange for [[money]], whereas ISIS-K fighters always expect to die as “martyrs”. 

The second mistake was that the GUR didn’t tell their [[proxy|proxies]] to flee to a safe house right after the attack to meet a contact that’ll then help them reach the border later on but who’d actually kill them once they meet in order to cover everything up. This led to the terrorists racing towards the Ukrainian border, thus showing everyone that they’d find sanctuary there, which made Russia’s claim of Ukrainian involvement believable for skeptical [[Western civilization|Westerners]].

And third, the last mistake was that the GUR used an outdated news template to claim credit for the attack on behalf of ISIS-K, who they correctly predicted would opportunistically run with it for clout. By doing so, however, they signaled that the group itself didn’t play a role in organizing what happened otherwise their more modern template would have been used instead. Taken together, these three sloppy mistakes discredited the [[Mainstream Media]]'s narrative and drew attention to the GUR instead.