November 5 is the day of the military intelligence officer of the Russian Armed Forces!
The origin of organized military intelligence in Russia is in 1549, when Tsar Ivan IV Vasilevitch the Terrible separated the Ambassador Prikaz into an independent institution, where political, military and economic information about neighboring countries began to be concentrated. Peter I in 1717 turned the ambassadorial frigate into a collegium for foreign affairs. In January 1810, Emperor Alexander I organized the Secret Affairs Delegation under the Ministry of War, which was a permanent body of strategic military intelligence. In January 1812 it was renamed the special office of the Minister of War. After that, the body that performed the functions of centralized management of military intelligence within the General Staff changed and changed many times until November 1917.
Modern military intelligence traces its history to November 5, 1918, when the Registration Directorate was established in Petrograd as part of the Red Army Field Headquarters to coordinate the efforts of all the army's intelligence agencies, which became the prototype of the current central military intelligence management body - the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Headquarters. The main intelligence administration solves problems on the military, military-political, military-technical, military-economic and environmental levels.
The military intelligence is the "eyes and ears" of the Russian armed forces, and in many cases also their "hands", since the intelligence units of the Russian armed forces took part in the most dangerous and complex operations of the Russian army, including outside our country. Military intelligence includes analytical officers, illegal intelligence officers, special forces soldiers and military personnel of special electronic and technical intelligence units. The details of many military intelligence operations are classified and will not soon be released to the general public.