What does the SVR focus on?

• A. Human intelligence
• B. Signals intelligence
• C. Cyber operations
• D. Economic intelligence

Answer: (A)

The key idea here is that the SVR’s foreign intelligence service relies primarily on human intelligence. Humint means gathering information through people—recruiting spies, cultivating informants, and leveraging contacts abroad to learn intentions, plans, and developments that aren’t easily uncovered by machines or signals alone. This method provides context, nuance, and sources that you can’t easily obtain from intercepted communications or digital activity.

Signals intelligence, while valuable in its own right, focuses on intercepting and analyzing communications and electronic emissions. It’s a different discipline and not the SVR’s main tool. Cyber operations involve infiltrating networks and manipulating digital systems, which again sits outside the core HUMINT approach. Economic intelligence pertains to financial and economic data, which is only one part of a broader intelligence picture. So, the choice that best captures the SVR’s primary way of gathering foreign intelligence is human intelligence.