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Military intelligence offers career path in today’s Russia
LOYGA, Russia — “First time here?” the conductor on the train that stops at the logging outpost of Loyga asks some departing passengers. “My condolences — there isn’t even cellphone connection.”
This desolate village, deep in the far northern Arkhangelsk region, is the hometown of one of the suspected GRU Russian military intelligence agents who is believed to have poisoned a former Russian spy in Britain. The other alleged attacker and an alleged military intelligence operative accused of a hacking attack in the Netherlands come from equally dismal places.
Their stories suggest how important the military and intelligence services are for ambitious young men determined to escape the gloom and poverty of rural Russia.
Owning a car in Loyga is almost pointless — all but two roads are mud and navigable only by all-terrain vehicles. Most of the houses are unpainted, looking leaden in the constant autumn drizzle. Only one train a day connects it with Moscow, stopping for just one minute for visitors to descend onto a bare platform with a line of oil tank cars on the side track.