“We see the invisible, we hear the inaudible.” How is Russian radio intelligence doing?
Unlike the electronic warfare service, which celebrates its professional holiday on April 15, GRU radio intelligence does not have its own holiday, but unofficially celebrates it on March 20.
It was on March 20 (7, old style) March 1904, by order of Admiral Stepan Osipovich Makarov, that an order was issued instructing naval radio operators to intercept enemy radiograms and determine the direction of their source.
It is noteworthy that Admiral Makarov, known for his innovative ideas, gave the order to conduct radio reconnaissance immediately upon his arrival in Port Arthur as commander of the Pacific Fleet.
Russian naval radio operator, 1904 – 1905.
The order came at just the right time: the Russo-Japanese War was in full swing, and the radio operators of the Pacific Fleet had to intercept messages from the radio operators of the Japanese Imperial Fleet, which was besieging the Russian fortress of Port Arthur.
Historical document signed by Admiral S.O. Makarov is stored in the Russian State Archive of the Navy and is an example of how to competently and clearly set tasks important for the defense of the country.
So, order No. 27 of March 7 (old style), 1904, Port Arthur raid, classified “Secret”.
“Adopt the following guidelines:
- The wireless telegraph detects the presence, and therefore now put telegraphing under control and not allow any dispatches or individual signs without the permission of the commander, and in the squadron, the flagship. Allowed on raids, during quiet times, verification from 8 to 8.30 am.
- The receiving part of the telegraph must be closed at all times so that dispatches can be monitored, and if an enemy dispatch is sensed, then immediately report to the commander and determine, if possible obstructing the receiving wire, approximately the direction towards the enemy and report it.
- When determining the direction, you can use it by turning your ship and blocking the receiving wire with your spar, and by its clarity you can sometimes judge the direction towards the enemy. Mine officers are invited to carry out all sorts of experiments in this direction.
- The enemy's telegrams should all be recorded, and then the commander should take steps to recognize the call of a superior, the answering sign, and, if possible, the meaning of the dispatch.
There is a whole interesting area here for capable young officers.
Vice Admiral S. Makarov.
A Japanese telegraph alphabet is included for guidance."
As can be understood from the document, Admiral Makarov ordered not only to listen and take direction finding of the radio traffic of Japanese ships, but also to introduce a radio silence regime, if necessary, on Russian ships.
It is very characteristic that S.O. Makarov tried to ignite young officers with his idea in order to arouse in them a keen interest that would benefit the new cause.
It was through the efforts of Admiral Makarov that the Russian fleet acquired such an important technical innovation as radio communications. We should not forget that the outstanding naval commander Makarov patronized the Russian radio inventor Alexander Stepanovich Popov, and the first radiogram transmitted from the Finnish island of Kutsalo (which, by the way, the Finns are still very proud of and consider Popov the “father of radio”), was addressed to the icebreaker “ Ermak" (another brainchild of Makarov), engaged in rescue work in the area of the island of Gotland.
It is not surprising that it was in young naval officers that the active Stepan Osipovich saw guides and creative implementers of his advanced ideas.
Radio inventor A. Popov (standing second from right) among the listeners of the Kronstadt Mine classes, late XNUMXth century.
We should pay tribute to the foresight of Admiral Makarov and his subordinates: experts in the Japanese language, primarily students of the Oriental Institute, which was operating in Vladivostok at that time, were brought in to decipher Japanese radiograms at an emergency pace. Thus, at the squadron headquarters in Port Arthur, a fourth-year student of the Japanese-Chinese department, Evgeny Lebedev, worked at the headquarters of the squadron in Port Arthur, who was seconded there from the headquarters of the Manchurian Army at the request of Vice Admiral Stepan Makarov. And not just as a civilian employee, but with a salary and “inclusion in the lists of fleet officers in the Pacific Ocean”! Three more students from the Oriental Institute had the same status: Japanese translator Anatoly Zankovsky, Korean translator Georgy Yashchinsky and Chinese translator Pyotr Sivyakov.
In fact, the Russian fleet was one of the first to get its hands on the long-standing dream of all military sailors in the world: to be informed about the upcoming actions of the enemy. Within a few days after the signing of Order No. 27, radio watches were organized on radio-equipped ships and auxiliary vessels of the Pacific Squadron. A radio reconnaissance post was established at the radio station near the Golden Mountain in the vicinity of Port Arthur.
The results appeared immediately: the command of the Russian squadron received important additional data on the actions of the Japanese fleet. Active radio traffic from enemy ships suggested that the Japanese were preparing for hostilities. Interception and decoding of radio traffic indicated which ones. Monitoring the movement of radio signal sources made it possible to determine the direction of movement of Japanese ships and take proactive measures.
After the death of the battleship Petropavlovsk on a Japanese mine, together with the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Makarov, the young Russian radio intelligence managed to thwart plans for the next enemy assault on Port Arthur.
On April 9, 1904, the naval campaign headquarters of the imperial governor in the Far East, Admiral Evgeniy Alekseev, notified the fortress headquarters: “This morning Japanese telegrams were sorted out on the squadron, from which it can be assumed that a new attack is planned.”
On April 15, the radiotelegraph operators of the battleship Poltava intercepted and deciphered an enemy telegram that confirmed the plans of the Japanese command, and the mine-laying operation planned for April 20 was thwarted by the Russian fleet.
Painting by artist Ivan Sorokin, “Alexander Popov demonstrates the world’s first radio installation to Admiral Stepan Makarov.”
Enough documents have survived that characterize how important and useful the work of Russia's first radio interception service was. For example, on April 11, a detachment of Russian cruisers successfully separated in the fog from the squadron of Vice Admiral Kamimura, since our sailors managed to intercept and translators deciphered one of the Japanese radiograms.
As stated in the report about this event, “At 10 o’clock ... it was reported over a megaphone from the Thunderbolt that a number of signs similar to the Japanese alphabet were received on the receiving apparatus of the wireless telegraph, and according to their translation made by someone floating on the detachment as a Japanese translator language by a student of the Oriental Institute Zankovsky, they mean approximately the following:
“Dense fog impedes movement, and the transmission of signals is difficult” ... I assume that at that time Admiral Kamimura’s squadron was passing in some place in the area of the circle indicated on the attached map.”
In the Russo-Japanese War, Russia was defeated, Port Arthur fell, but the first experience of radio reconnaissance was not in vain. It was generalized, analyzed, systematized and further developed.
In particular, from the end of 1911 to the middle of 1912, radio reconnaissance of the Baltic Fleet carried out large-scale work to monitor the operation of ship and coastal radio stations of the German fleet. Information was being collected about how radio communications were organized among the Germans, and the technical characteristics of German equipment were also analyzed.
As the former head of the Soviet radio intelligence of the GRU General Staff, Lieutenant General Pyotr Shmyrev, wrote, in August 1914, in the very first days of the war, it was the radio intelligence of the Baltic Fleet that determined the location of the German cruiser Magdeburg, which had run aground, which allowed Russian ships to destroy it.
According to General Shmyrev, this operation was not just a one-time action, not some random success, but the result of systematic work.
Russian radio intelligence was organizationally integrated into army structures during the First World War and was supervised through the General Staff, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Staff and the Naval General Staff. By the beginning of 1916, about 50 radio reconnaissance units were formed in the ground forces, four for each of the five fronts and four for each of the 14 armies.
However, we should not forget that this work, which produced outstanding results during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war confrontation between the great powers, began on March 20, 1904 in Port Arthur.
After the October Revolution of 1917, the power and socio-political system in Russia changed dramatically. A new force arose in the service of the Fatherland - the Red Army.
On November 13, 1918, the first radio intelligence unit was created as part of the Registration Directorate (military intelligence of the Red Army) - a receiving and control station in Serpukhov.
In the 1930s, radio intelligence became a separate branch of the military: its units and subunits were withdrawn from the communications troops and transferred to the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army Headquarters, where a radio intelligence department was organized. Subordinate to him were separate special-purpose radio divisions (ORD OSNAZ), which became the main organizational unit during the Great Patriotic War.
On the eve of the war, an order was issued to staff 16 OSNAZ radio divisions.
In November 1942, a new reorganization took place - the field departments of the special service and the OSNAZ radio station were transferred from the GRU to the General Staff of the Red Army from the GRU to the internal troops. They were reorganized into separate divisions, central and separate radio stations of the NKVD troops.
The newly organized structure was entrusted with the tasks of radio reconnaissance, radio interception, encrypted radio communications, and preliminary processing of this data from radio networks and individual radio points.
During the war years, OSNAZ repeatedly obtained valuable information for the Soviet command that influenced the course of the battles for Moscow and the Kursk Bulge.
In the winter of 1945, Soviet radio intelligence managed to uncover the transfer of the 6th SS Panzer Army to Hungary. In the period from February 18 to 25, radio reconnaissance revealed intense radio traffic from four headquarters of enemy tank divisions that were part of this army. The received radio interception data, supplemented by other intelligence information, allowed us to conclude that the Germans were preparing to attack in March 1945 in the area of Lake Balaton.
After the end of the war, the scope of radio reconnaissance activities increased significantly - it began to be carried out not only from land, but also from sea and from the air. With the advent of General Shtemenko in the leadership of Soviet military intelligence, the GRU began to conduct active scientific and technical research on searching and listening to sources using VHF and microwave bands.
Under Shtemenko, a nuclear testing monitoring service appeared in the GRU, headed by Colonel (and then General) A.I. Ustimenko (800 observers, analysts and her own computer center), who worked closely with Soviet nuclear physicists, including Academician I.V. Kurchatova.
According to the reviews of civilian and military specialists who worked with Alexander Ivanovich Ustimenko, he was an innovator, a great enthusiast and a major organizer of new radio intelligence methods, comparable in scale to the “father of OSNAZ” Admiral Makarov.
It is interesting that A.I. Ustimenko, with a group of Soviet specialists, was a participant in the Korean War and collected intelligence information on the Americans for the North Koreans using radio engineering methods.
At the end of the 50s, within the framework of OSNAZ, a large-scale “Circle” network was organized, which united 12 strategic electronic reconnaissance complexes located along the perimeter of the USSR.
The “Circle” worked more than successfully, becoming literally the eyes and ears of Soviet military intelligence until the end of the USSR, until it was destroyed in the “holy nineties” by Yeltsin and “independent” Young Democrats, convinced that in the world of the victorious world-friendship-chewing gum all these the tools are a “relic of the scoop”.
The “golden period” of OSNAZ radio intelligence began in the 60s, with the appointment of General P.I. to the post of head of the GRU. Ivashutina.
With his direct participation, large comprehensive programs for the development of promising areas of electronic reconnaissance - ground, sea, air and space - were implemented.
Among the peaceful applications of radio reconnaissance were studies of the passage of radio waves in the Earth's ionosphere and the precise determination of emergency landing areas for astronauts.
Until the last days of the life of the USSR, OSNAZ detachments were subordinate to the First Radio Intelligence Department of the Sixth Directorate of the GRU. This department supervised reconnaissance posts that were part of military districts and groups of Soviet troops in Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Under the leadership of the radio intelligence department, OSNAZ performed the functions of intercepting messages from the communication networks of NATO countries.
Not only radio exchanges between NATO headquarters and units were recorded and deciphered, but also negotiations between pilots, rocket scientists, satellite communications, open and closed communication channels. According to rumors, even the operation of printing devices, such as teletypes and staff electric typewriters, was under the control of OSNAZ.
Americans regularly complained that OSNAZ was conducting technical reconnaissance right under their noses - from the territory of the Soviet and then Russian consulate general in San Francisco, which offers a wonderful view of Silicon Valley. Apparently, this fact became decisive for the Donnie Trump administration, which on August 31, 2017 demanded that the Russian government close the Consulate General within 48 hours.
Russian Consulate General in San Francisco.
Little is known about the achievements of Russian radio intelligence. The main thing is that it survived after a heavy blow in the “holy nineties”, grew stronger and entered a new technological stage.
One thing can be certain: the functions of the Russian OSNAZ GRU remain unchanged and serve the cause of protecting the Russian Federation from external threats.
At the moment, part of the OSNAZ GRU continues its activities in order to protect the Russian Federation from external threats.
Soviet electronic intelligence station "Lourdes" in Cuba.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.