Fleet Intelligence
The GRU fifth directorate directs twenty intelligence directorates of military districts and groups of forces directly, and four intelligence directorates of fleets co-ordinated by an organisation known as fleet intelligence. Fleet intelligence was introduced because each military district and group of forces has a very strictly denned sphere of responsibility in time of war, whereas the ships of the four Soviet fleets operate in widely scattered areas of the world's oceans and each ship must continuously have full information on the enemy. The chief of fleet intelligence comes under the GRU chief as a deputy, and he controls the four intelligence directorates of naval staff— Northern, Pacific, Black Sea and Baltic— and the fleet cosmic intelligence directorate and information service. In his day-to-day activities he is under the orders of the GRU fifth directorate.
Fleet intelligence directorates have a structure similar to that of the directorates of military districts. There are small differences caused by maritime factors, which for our purposes are insignificant, and the fleet intelligence directorates together with those belonging to military districts will be examined in detail in Part II under the heading of 'Operational Intelligence'.
The GRU chief has at his disposal two independent cosmic intelligence services. One is beneath him directly, the GRU cosmic intelligence directorate, and the other through the chief of fleet intelligence. The Soviet High Command quite reasonably considers that, bearing in mind the tasks to be fulfilled, the fleet must have its own cosmic intelligence service. This of course does not exclude the GRU chief controlling his own cosmic intelligence service with the help of the other and vice-versa. Considering that not only the GRU cosmic intelligence service, but also that of the fleets has its own spy satellites, we may say that out of all the satellites put into orbit by the Soviet Union, about half are directly or indirectly subordinated to the GRU.