Gen. Yuri Ivanov, 52, deputy head of GRU, the Russian military's overseas intelligence arm of Russian military, was found dead in mysterious circumstances described in a terse official Russian eulogy on Aug. 30 as a tragic swimming accident "several days ago." No further details were provided such as where he died.


Debkafile's exclusive sources report that Gen. Ivanov appears to have drowned in early August at the Syrian Mediterranean port town of Latakia. After he had been missing for ten days, his body was washed up on the shore of southern Turkey on Aug. 12.


Turkish sources revealed that his remains were recovered by Turkish fishermen from Cevlik village in the Hatay province near the Syrian border. According to unofficial sources, the body was too decomposed for identification. The Russian general was finally identified by the cross around its neck, but there was no word on the cause of his death.


Debkafile's Middle East intelligence sources do not believe he accidentally drowned but find it more likely that was murdered and his body thrown into the sea. They say it is inconceivable that the deputy head of GRU would have gone swimming without bodyguards, especially at a Russian foreign base, and drowned without anyone noticing. Even if he did drown accidentally, his guards would not have rested until they recovered his body and not let drift for miles. Furthermore, Latakia is a summer resort frequented by high-ranking Syrian and Gulf emirate officials with their families. Its bathing beaches are well guarded by security personnel as well as professional life-savers, who would have been instantly alerted to any mishap in the water.


Our sources surmise that Gen. Yuri Ivanov went missing from a private, secretive engagement from which his aides and guards were banished to wait outside, not swimming alone in the sea of Latakia. This would account for the delay in reporting his disappearance.


They recall in this regard his former position as head of the North Caucasus branch of Russian military intelligence, which he held until late 2006. In this capacity he played a leading role in clandestine operations against al Qaeda and the Chechen revolt. Among the many terrorist groups present in Syria are al Qaeda cells from the Caucasian.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7973346/Top-Russian-spys-body-washes-up-after-swimming-accident.html

Top Russian spy’s body washes up 'after swimming accident’

The body of one of Russia’s top spies has washed up on the Turkish coast after he disappeared close to a sensitive Russian naval facility in neighbouring Syria.

By Andrew Osborn, Moscow
Published: 4:08PM BST 31 Aug 2010

The body of one of Russia?s top spies has washed up on the Turkish coast after he disappeared close to a sensitive Russian naval facility in neighbouring Syria.
Gen. Yuri Ivanov, 52, deputy head of GRU, the Russian military's overseas intelligence arm of Russian military, was found dead in mysterious circumstances

Major-General Yuri Ivanov, 52, was the deputy head of Russia’s foreign military intelligence arm known as GRU which is thought to operate the biggest network of foreign spies out of all of Russia’s clandestine intelligence services.

His badly decomposed body was found washed up on the Turkish coast by local fishermen earlier this month after he disappeared in the Syrian coastal resort of Latakia further south. The Russian army’s in-house newspaper, Red Star, did not report his death until last Saturday when he was quietly buried in Moscow.

The circumstances of his death are reminiscent of a John Le Carre novel and have therefore fuelled theories that he may have been murdered in Syria and his body then thrown into the Mediterranean where it drifted for days.

According to the Kremlin, he was on holiday in Syria and died in a tragic swimming accident. However, other reports have suggested he was on official business and the location where he is reported to have disappeared was only about fifty miles from a strategically vital Russian naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus which is being expanded and upgraded to service and refuel ships from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

The facility is Russia’s only foothold in the Mediterranean Sea, and Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, is know to be concerned that Moscow will use the upgraded facility as a base for spy ships and electronic espionage directed at the Middle East. The port is also close to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, a terminal for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which is seen as a lifeline for Georgia, against whom Russia fought a short war in 2008.

Mystery over Russian general found dead on Turkish beach

Russian media question official version of death of Yuri Ivanov, that he died going for a swim

A mysterious accident in which one of Russia's most powerful spies was found dead on a Turkish beach has provoked speculation that the deputy head of the country's foreign military intelligence service had been murdered.

The badly decomposed body of Yuri Ivanov washed up last month on the shore of the Mediterranean, and was discovered by Turkish villagers in the province of Hatay, Turkish newspapers reported today. Reports suggest that he was quietly buried in Moscow over the weekend.

Ivanov was the second in command at Russia's foreign military intelligence unit, the GRU. The general had last been deployed to review military installations in Syria, amid Kremlin attempts to reassert its influence in the Middle East, reports suggested.

Major General Ivanov's body was found on 16 August but was only identified last week. Russia's Red Star newspaper confirmed his death on Saturday in a brief obituary. Russia's defence ministry declined to comment further.

Today, however, the Russian media questioned the official version of his death – that he had died while going for a swim – and pointed out that, as a top-ranking spy, he would have been accompanied everywhere by bodyguards.

The news portal Svobodnaya Pressa also pointed out that Ivanov was the second top GRU agent to die in unexplained circumstances. Another senior agent, Yuri Gusev, was killed in 1992 in a "car accident". His fellow officers later established that he had been murdered, the paper said, adding: "Spies of that rank are well protected. As a rule, they don't die by chance."

After finding the body, Turkey's foreign ministry approached neighbouring countries for further information, with Damascus reporting that Ivanov had gone missing while on assignment in Syria.

The general was last seen visiting the building site for a new Russian military base in the Syrian coastal city of Tartus, which is being expanded as a base for Russia's Black Sea fleet.

After his visit, he left for a meeting with Syrian intelligence agents. He then went missing, the Turkish newspaper Vatan reported today.

GRU is the country's main military intelligence and reconnaissance agency, and reports directly to the general staff of Russia's armed forces. The directorate is much bigger than the KGB – which was broken up after the collapse of communism into two agencies: the foreign intelligence service, the SVR, and its domestic equivalent, the FSB.

Historically, Russia's intelligence agencies have often been fierce rivals.

The Kremlin assigned Ivanov to lead its war against Chechen separatists in 2000, and he allegedly masterminded a series of assassination attacks, which the Russian secret service carried out on Chechens living abroad. In 2004, two GRU agents killed the Chechen separatist leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, blowing up his SUV in Qatar.

The Qatar authorities swiftly arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment two Russian GRU spies who were said in court to have been acting under direct orders from the Russian leadership. The pair were extradited back to Russia in 2005 to serve out their sentences on home soil. Both then promptly disappeared.

http://svpressa.ru/society/article/29605

Special Reports

Mysterious death of a Russian spy chief

Published: Sept. 15, 2010 at 11:26 AM

MOSCOW, Sept. 15 (UPI) -- Mystery surrounds the death of Maj. Gen. Yuri Ivanov, deputy chief of Russian Military Intelligence, whose decomposing body was found on a Turkish beach in August after he disappeared in neighboring Syria.

On Aug. 28, 12 days after Ivanov's body was found by Turkish fishermen in Hatay province, the Russian army newspaper Red Star reported the general had died in a "swimming accident" near the Syrian port of Tartous.

But there was widespread speculation that the 52-year-old general had been killed, the latest in a series of political assassinations in the Middle East in recent years.

Russia's Defense Ministry refused to comment further. As far as is known, Ivanov was quietly buried in Moscow.

But even the Russian media questioned the official version of Ivanov's death, noting that as a top-ranking intelligence officer he would have been under the constant protection of bodyguards.

The news outlet Svobodnaya Pressa noted: "Spies of that rank are well-protected. As a rule, they don't die by chance."

Ivanov was last seen Aug. 2 visiting the site where a Russian naval base is being built at Tartous for the Black Sea Fleet. It will be the Russians' only foothold in the Mediterranean.

The Turkish newspaper Vatan reported Sept. 1 that Ivanov vanished after he left the base for a meeting with Syrian intelligence officers. It isn't clear whether he was accompanied by aides or bodyguards but it would be highly unusual if he wasn't.

The Israelis are concerned that Moscow will use the facility, scheduled for completion in 2013, as a base for spy ships and establish an electronic surveillance installation in Tartous that could spy on their communications and military movements.

The Russians are constructing the base, which could accommodate large warships, at a time of high tension between Israel on the one hand and Syria, Lebanon and Iran on the other.

The Israelis have warned Damascus that it risks being hit if it continues to provide missiles and other weapons to Hezbollah in defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

There was speculation that Israel's foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, may have been behind Ivanov's mysterious demise. It has a record of eliminating the enemies of the Jewish state.

But that seems unlikely. In the murky world of intelligence, spy agencies rarely kill senior figures from rival services. Besides, Israel signed a landmark military cooperation agreement with Russian in Moscow Sept. 6.

That has far-reaching ramifications in the Middle East since Moscow traditionally has supported Arab states and built a nuclear reactor for Iran that was recently inaugurated.

But Moscow is also engaged fighting Islamist separatists in the Caucasus, just as Israel is fighting them in the Middle East.

One of the highlights of the new military pact is a $100 million deal for Israel to provide Moscow with high-tech unmanned aerial vehicles to tighten surveillance over Georgia, with which Russia fought a brief war in 2008.

It is unlikely in the extreme that Israel would sanction the killing of a top Russian intelligence chief a month before such an important agreement was signed or that the Syrians did it since they depend on Moscow for advanced weapons systems.

It is conceivable that Ivanov's death was linked to his work with the Russian Military Intelligence, known by the initials GRU, which reports to the general staff of Russia's armed forces and these days is bigger than its longtime rival, the KGB, which was broken up after the fall of communism.

In 2000-06, Ivanov led the campaign against Chechen separatists. He allegedly masterminded the assassination of several leaders.

One, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, was blown up by two GRU agents in Qatar in 2004. The assassins were arrested, sentenced to lengthy prison terms and sent to Russia to serve their sentences. Both promptly disappeared.

Ivanov's death recalls the mysterious Aug. 2, 2008, assassination in Tartous of Brig. Gen. Mohammed Suleiman, a close confidant of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Damascus' main liaison with Hezbollah.

He was shot by a sniper, apparently firing from a boat offshore, as he sunbathed at a well-guarded resort used by Syria's elite. Some reports have identified the shooter as a captain in the Israeli navy's elite commando unit Flotilla 13.