GRU has always had its own illegals program, at least from the 1930s. They were not concerned with the same tasks as KGB/SVR, targeting military technology and

GRU has always had its own illegals program, at least from the 1930s. They were not concerned with the same tasks as KGB/SVR, targeting military technology and the militaries themselves rather than political/security espionage , so they did away with much smaller networks and humbler resources.