February 20, 2026: Since Russia 2022, HUR/Ukrainian Military Intelligence service has grown in size and the number and types of operations it conducts. For example, many of the daring Ukrainian long-range drone attacks inside Russia are organized and carried out by HUR. This is made possible by years of work by HUR since 2014, when Russia first seized Ukrainian territory. Because of that long history, HUR became known for successful operations deep inside Russia that took a year or more to plan and organize.

Multiple attacks are used against economic targets over many months. This worked with the Ukrainian attacks on the Russian oil-refining, which ultimately reduced Russian refinery output by over 20 percent. Russia eventually rebuilt those facilities, at a cost of billions of dollars and months of shortages. HUR also organizes campaigns that concentrate on costly even more money to repair. At the end of 2025 it was discovered that Russia had to devote half the government budget to sustain the war in Ukraine and deal with all the damage and economic disruption HUR was causing inside Russia.

In addition to damaged and regularly sabotaged railroads, HUR also concentrated on Russian air defense systems, which Russia has a difficult time replacing because of so many Western components. These HUR operations weakened the Russian air defenses that detected and attacked incoming Ukrainian long range drone attacks. HUR operations would destroy air defenses to create a temporary undefended route into Russia. HUR also found critical and relatively unprotected targets inside Russia. Together, all these HUR preparations and operations led to crippling attacks on key segments of the Russian military economy.

HUR could also be called on to devise and carry out special operations to assist front line soldiers. Sometimes it meant gathering key information on Russian operations in a specific area and doing it quickly. In one case the HUR commandos organized a raid on Russian positions to rescue some Ukrainian troops that had recently been captured. When news of this spread to Russian troops along the 1,200 kilometers front line there was much distress about who might be next.

In other HUR operations, they equipped a dozen captured Russian FPV/First Person View drone operator goggles and arranged for them to be delivered to random Russian FPV units as a gift from Russian civilians. When these were worn and turned on, they exploded. There were several fatalities and many wounded before the Russians found all of these goggles.

Another area that HUR dominates, and invented, is naval drones. In the first two years of the war these drones destroyed or damaged about a third of the ships in the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The surviving ships took refuge in ports over a thousand kilometers from Crimea and Ukrainian ports. The naval drones continue to operate, patrolling the Black Sea looking for Russian merchant and military ships as well as making occasional attacks on Russian Black Sea ports.

While 2025 was an eventful year, earlier HUR activities were often international, like attacks on Russian military or intelligence overseas. These often involve the use of foreign airlines and railroads by unidentified Ukrainian HUR operatives passing themselves off as Ukrainian or Russian civilians. Because the Ukrainian and Russian languages closely resemble each other, it’s easy for a Ukrainian to speak unaccented Russian, but not so easy when a Russian tries it. Many intelligence operatives speak several languages, especially English. The international language airline flight control is English because early in the history of commercial flying most of the aircraft were American. During World War II, the largest air force the world has ever known was American. That continued for many decades after the war and is still generally true in 2024. In other words, if you want to be an intelligence agency field operative, you must speak English, even if it is heavily accented. The United States is a large country that includes Alaska and Hawaii. These two areas contain a lot of people who still speak Inuit Alaskan languages and Hawaiian native languages that never died out. America is the land of many different accents.

Which gets us back to the Ukrainian HUR intelligence field operatives in Syria, where the Khimik detachment got into the country unobserved and then infiltrated the Russian Kuweires airbase and destroyed a mobile electronic warfare system Russia had been using to protect the base from drone attacks. As soon as the electronic warfare system was out of action, numerous drones attacked the unprotected base and did significant damage.

Why would Ukrainian intelligence undertake such a mission so far from Ukraine? It was because this base was also used to train Russian mercenaries to fight in Ukraine. The training was specialized and the students caused problems for the Ukrainian forces fighting the Russian invaders.

Russian forces originally appeared in Syria after the Six-Day War, then left sometime after the Yom Kippur War, and returned in 2015 to assist the beleaguered ruler Bashar Al Assad. Hafez al-Assad, the father of Bashar, had ruled Syria from 1971 to 2000. Hafez sided with the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was a longtime ally of Russia until he died in 2000. His son Bashar took over and was even more efficient, and vicious, than his father. The relationship with Russia increased as Russia used the Syrian port of Targus for their tiny Mediterranean Fleet and a nearby airbase for military and commercial aircraft. This airbase was also used to support the activities of Russian ally Iran in Syria.

There are a lot of Russians operating in Syria, especially since 2015. Russia thought it was safe to train operatives for their war against Ukraine. HUR found out about that and did something to disrupt the Russian operation. This is not the first time HUR has gone after Russian operations in third countries. What was unique about the Syrian operation was that HUR involvement became known, something HUR prefers to avoid. HUR did achieve their objective in Syria, so the overall operation was a success.

It won’t be known for years or decades how many overseas HUR operations there were and how many foreign countries HUR operated in to defeat Russian operations. For example, Russian paramilitary operatives have been very active in Africa, especially Congo, where Russia wants to assure their access to rare minerals that are mined there. They must compete with China and several Western countries. HUR has apparently been causing problems for Russia in Congo as well and has managed to conceal their involvement. HUR may be operating against Russian interests in other parts of the world, including South America. HUR prefers to keep their presence hidden, even from allies like the United States.