The Latvian Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIDD) has published the names of six Russian GRU officers and one Belarusian GRU officer allegedly engaged in intelligence activities against Latvia, the service said in its 2025 report.
MIDD notes that Russian and Belarusian intelligence and security services have cooperated for a long time. “In practice, Belarus also collects intelligence in Russia’s interests, and its military intelligence can be viewed as a ‘branch’ of the Russian GRU,” the report says.
The report mentions Sergey Baranov, an officer of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Belarusian Armed Forces, as well as Russian GRU officers Aleksei Pizhikov, Aleksei Lesnikov, Nikolai Chetverikov, Alexandr Yushin, Alexandr Gladkov and Grigory Ivanov.
According to MIDD, the Russian GRU recruits agents to gather intelligence and seeks other individuals who can be drawn into cooperation. Intelligence centers in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad and Smolensk are responsible for building Russian agent networks at the operational and tactical level. They are especially active in recruiting citizens who regularly travel to Russia or Belarus.
The report also says that Russia’s political and economic influence in Belarus is increasing.
“Dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka is trying to restore contacts with Western countries in order to ease sanctions against Belarus and create an illusion of sovereignty among the country’s population. In reality, Lukashenka has become dependent on the Kremlin’s goodwill, which uses Belarus as an appendage of the Russian military-industrial complex, a political vassal and an additional propaganda tool,” the report says.
MIDD believes that Russia’s influence over Belarus, including informal influence, is likely to persist even without Lukashenka, regardless of the formal structure of power in Belarus.
