Russia and its GRU spies have a problem

Guardian:

...
The next day Minin scoped out the target, according to Dutch investigators. He took photos of the OPCW building and the Marriott hotel next door. He went back at least twice. The operation was slated for Friday 13 April. The Russians drove their vehicle to the Marriott, and parked just across the road from the OPCW, under a dull spring sky.

GRU operatives are meant to be part of an elite spy cadre – highly trained professionals, dedicated to the motherland, and schooled in operational warfare. In reality the four turned out to be bungling amateurs. Seemingly, British intelligence knew of the plot in advance. They tipped off their Dutch colleagues. The men were closely tracked.

When the Dutch swooped they discovered sophisticated equipment hidden in the car’s boot: a computer, a 4G smartphone, a transformer and battery bag. There was also a white rectangular wifi panel antennae covered with a dark coat. The spies bought the battery in The Hague and kept the receipt. Serebriakov had brought additional devices for hacking wifi connections.

There were further tell-tale clues. The GRU officers took their rubbish with them from their hotel rooms: tins of green Heineken and empty fruit juice bottles, found in the vehicle in a plastic shopping bag. They had a lot of cash for breezy sightseers from Moscow: $20,000 and €20,000, sorted into crisp hundred-dollar bills.

The most spectacular evidence was retrieved from seized cellphones and a camera. One of the men tried to destroy his mobile, further proof, according to the Dutch, that the group had received security training. One phone had been switched on for the first time, on 9 April. The location, identified by a cell-tower, was the GRU’s barracks in Moscow’s Komsomolsky Prospekt.

Unlike James Bond, officers engaged in real-life international espionage need to account for their expenditure. And so Moronets snapped a copy of his taxi receipt. It revealed that on 10 April he went by taxi from the GRU’s HQ in Nezvishkiy Pereulok to terminal F of Sheremetyevo airport. His 32km journey cost 842 roubles (£10). We do not know if he was repaid, or if he left a tip.

The firm Be Taxis confirmed the receipt was real. “Yes, this is ours. The driver Tsvetkov is now on a shift,” a company employee said.

By late spring, western intelligence agencies had pieced together a comprehensive picture of the GRU’s cyber operations abroad. Its sweep was astonishing. At a time when Moscow was accused of running a state-sponsored doping programme, Serebriakov had travelled in August 2016 to the Olympic games in Brazil. Found on his laptop was a photograph – the spy with an unknown young woman wearing a “Russia” T-shirt.

In December 2017 Serebriakov flew to Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur. He stayed at the Grand Millennium hotel. Dutch prosecutors say he was targeting Malaysia’s chief prosecutor and police. They were investigating MH17, the Malaysian airliner shot down in the summer of 2014 in eastern Ukraine by a Buk anti-aircraft missile. The launcher came from Russia, Dutch investigators believe.

Days later Serebriakov was using a wifi hotspot in Lausanne, Switzerland. He appears to have checked into the Alpha-Palmiers and Palace hotels. His apparent goal was to hack into the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and to infect its systems with custom-built GRU malware.
...
The Hague was not the final stop of the GRU team’s mini-tour. The group bought a train ticket for 17 April from Utrecht to Bern, Switzerland. The ostensible target this time was the Spietz laboratory, near Bern, which had been testing samples provided by Britain. The lab confirmed the substance used against Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, was novichok.

The Russians caught in Holland were not diplomats; rather, they were veteran members of the GRU’s Sandworm cyber unit. Their mission could hardly be deemed a success. They were expelled.
...

There is more.

These guys are unlikely to be confused with James Bond.

There appears to be an unraveling of several of their recent capers in the West.  The US and other countries have indicted several of the GRU agents which at least should curtain their travel outside of Russia.

The Daily Mail also has a wrap up of the plots that have been foiled:

The West fights back against Putin's cyber war: America, Holland and the UK coordinate retaliation against Russia as it's revealed Moscow's web of hackers hit high-profile targets across the globe in a FOUR YEAR campaign

and:

Fancy Bear's trail of blunders: How Putin’s elite globe-trotting hacking squad were caught after leaving a trail of clues across the world including a selfie at the Olympics and a TAXI RECEIPT from their spy base to the airport