GRU

American  

Or G.R.U.

1. (in the Soviet Union) the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet General Staff, a military intelligence organization founded in 1920 and functioning as a complement to the KGB.

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GRU British  

abbreviation

1. (formerly) the Soviet military intelligence service; the military counterpart of the KGB

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Etymology

Origin of GRU

< Russian, for Glávnoe razvédyvatel'noe upravlénie

Example Sentences

Then there’s the upstart GRU Space, created just last year with the goal of building hotels on the moon.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 31, 2026

"I wasn't part of this, I don't work for the GRU," he shot back.

From BBC • Mar. 11, 2026

The delegation was led by the deputy head of Russia's GRU military intelligence, Andrei Averyanov, the National Assembly president told AFP.

From Barron's • Feb. 24, 2026

A career military officer, Alekseyev has been the first deputy chief of the GRU since 2011.

From Barron's • Feb. 6, 2026

Like Bentley, Whittaker Chambers—a prominent journalist for Time magazine—spent years as an underground Soviet agent in the 1930s, cultivating informers and passing secret documents to his contacts in the GRU, the USSR's military intelligence service.

From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau