According Le Monde, citing French intelligence, the GRU has for several years maintained a rear base of operations in the Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps. This Russian military intelligence unit, also responsible for interfering in the 2016 US presidential election, is now believed to have been liquidating the enemies of President Vladimir Putin throughout Europe, including in NATO countries. The idea of a roving gang of secret-agent assassins gathering at an Alpine retreat to plot the destruction of their sinister leader’s enemies might seem like the premise for Daniel Craig’s latest outing as 007, but this plotline has historical antecedents long predating Ian Fleming. One of the founding fathers of the Kremlin’s international assassination policy was the Bolshevik who organized the murder of Stalin’s rival, Leon Trotsky: Leonid (né Nahum) Eitingon. The assassination program he masterminded survived not only him but the cold war itself.
