[[File:Yulia Chicherina.PNG|right|250px|thumb|Russian singer/songwriter [[Yulia Chicherina]] sits beneath a flag emblazoned with the GRU logo.]]
'''GRU''' stands for '''Glavnoe razvedyvatel’noe upravlenie''', or '''Main Intelligence Directorate'''. <ref>In Russian, term translated in English is "''razvedka''". Razvedka in Russian literally is equivalent to English "reconnaissance". "Intelligence" implies analytic abilities. Razvedka or reconnaissance is the correct term for "spying", rennoitering, intelligence gathering, etc. In English, the term "Intelligence" or analyzing reconnoitered information is a different function from "spying".</ref> Since 1942, except for a few brief periods, GRU has been the acronym for the [[Soviet]] (now [[Russia]]n) military intelligence service.
When the [[Soviet Union]] dissolved in 1991, the [[KGB]] was disbanded. However, exactly as GRU defector [[Victor Suvorov]] predicted and explained years earlier, the GRU survived. The GRU has always been staffed with military experts, and not Communist Party ideologues. In fact, the GRU often found itself at odds and threatened by the KGB, whom GRU officers regarded as non-professional intelligence officers and drunks. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, most residents of Russia and former Soviet-bloc countries had never heard of the GRU, whose primary task was defending the homeland. Offensive or aggressive operations against sovereign nations were the design of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]], of which the GRU would be compelled to fulfill by threats from the KGB of execution or imprisonment in the Soviet [[gulag]] system. The GRU, being the central brain of the only armed group within the [[USSR]], was regarded with suspicion and mistrust by communist party rulers, who always considered the Russian and Soviet armed services as a potential domestic threat to their power.