Secret operations of the Kremlin: When Putin calls the GRU

The story of Russia’s subversive plan to overthrow the pro-European government in Chisinau with the help of extremist groups and pro-Russian parties during the ongoing aggression against Ukraine has received official confirmation at the 59th Munich Security Conference – directly from Washington. “We are extremely concerned about the conspiratorial attempts coming from Russia to destabilise the government in Moldova,” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said after a meeting with Moldovan President Maia Sandu.

Although the Kremlin’s covert operations have been partially exposed, the world’s media are carrying a warning from international security experts that the Russian government will not give up so easily on destabilisation in Moldova, especially as the government in that country, apart from its persistent pursuit of the EU, has recently been increasingly expressing its willingness to join NATO.

Formal relations between Moldova and NATO began in 1992, when Moldova joined the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council.

Although Moldova is constitutionally defined as a neutral state, the second, more intense phase of the invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s regime, which began on the anniversary of the aggression on 24 February, created a real danger of an escalation of the war beyond Ukraine’s borders, precisely against Moldova.

A DANGEROUS STORY FROM CHISINAU

Western security experts believe that in recent weeks the Kremlin has deliberately encouraged the escalation of tensions in the separatist region of Transnistria, an area in Moldova bordering the Russian Federation.

Moldova and Transnistria have been in a so-called frozen conflict since the collapse of the Soviet Union and a brief civil war in 1992, and they assess that Moldova could become a new hotbed of instability in this part of Europe. In particular, the increasingly obvious failures of the Russian army to occupy parts of Ukraine.

Recent history shows that the Kremlin has already carried out subversive actions against the authorities in Moldova.

As far back as 2014, a few weeks before the then pro-European government in Chisinau signed the EU Accession Act, Moscow, through extremist organisations – and even more so through the leaders of pro-Russian parties in Moldova – attempted to stage a coup d’état. Western intelligence services warned Chisinau in time so that, with the help of the Moldovan secret service, it was possible to create a rift within the putschist team. GRU agents who were on the ground were then forced to evacuate Moldova urgently.

The Western services knew the identity of most of the GRU agents who carried out the coup in Moldova, but the “red alert” was sounded again two years later. Then the name of Vladimir Popov, alias Vladimir Moiseyev, resurfaced some 1 300 kilometres away – in Montenegro, during a covert operation prepared by the Kremlin for the extraordinary parliamentary elections in October 2016.

All these events have prompted additional investigations by counter-intelligence agencies and police services in the US, UK, France, Germany and other NATO members, as well as by intelligence agencies in Sweden and Finland.

After a detailed analysis, an ominous assessment emerged: Russian intelligence officers, under instructions from the Kremlin, have been carrying out covert operations for years, mainly in Europe, all with the aim of destabilising certain regions.

One of these operations was recently investigated in detail at the end of January by journalists from the respected New York Times, who analysed a sabotage operation in Spain.

LETTER BOMBS IN MADRID

According to research by this influential media outlet, US and European officials believe that Russian military intelligence officers gave direct instructions to associates of a white supremacist paramilitary organisation in November and December 2022.

Russian imperialist movement, based in Russia, to “carry out a terrorist letter-bombing campaign in Madrid”.

Spanish and international teams of inspectors are investigating who sent six bombs packed in postal envelopes to several locations in Madrid in late November and early December, including the official residence of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez; as well as the US and Ukrainian embassies; and the Ministry of Defence building. No one was killed in the attacks, which US officials have described as an act of terrorism, but a Ukrainian embassy staff member was injured when one of the envelope bombs exploded as it was being opened, according to a lengthy New York Times article.

According to the text, Western investigators are focusing on the Russkoe Imperskoe Dvuzhenijie (Russian Imperial Movement – op.cit.), a radical Russian paramilitary group with members and associates across Europe, as well as military training centres in St Petersburg, Russia, US officials told The Times.

The State Department has labelled the organisation a global terrorist organisation, with ample evidence that it is linked to Russian intelligence services.

According to the investigation, which has been ongoing since the beginning of December 2022, important members of this Russian group have been in Spain, and the police there have been monitoring their links with Spanish far-right organisations.

US officials say it appeared as if the Russian officers running the campaign were intent on keeping European governments in line and wanted to test proxy groups if Moscow decided to escalate the conflict – writes the New York Times.

The aim was to “send a warning signal” that Russia and its agents could carry out terrorist attacks across Europe, including in the capitals of NATO Member States. More specifically: in the cities of those countries that are helping to defend Ukraine from Russian invasion, said US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity “due to the sensitivity of the investigation”.

Spain is a member of the alliance and has provided military and humanitarian aid and diplomatic support to Ukraine. One letter bomb was sent to Instalazi, a weapons manufacturer in Zaragoza, north-eastern Spain, which makes grenade launchers that Spain supplies to Ukraine. The second explosive envelope was sent to the Torrejon de Ardoz air base near Madrid.

This looks like a warning shot. Russia is sending a signal that it is prepared to use terrorist proxies to launch attacks in the West’s hinterlands, Nathan Sayles, the State Department’s counter-terrorism coordinator during the Donald Trump administration, told the New York Times.

Vladimir Putin has given his military intelligence agency (GRU) wide leeway to develop and carry out covert operations in Europe, but it is still unclear to what extent the Kremlin was involved in sending letter bombs to Spain, according to US officials quoted by the New York Times.

THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL STATE

According to operational information from Western intelligence structures, the leaders of the aforementioned Russian Imperial Movement group, Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, who founded the group in St Petersburg in 2002, Denis Valyulovich Gariev, the head of the paramilitary unit of the sub-group called the “Russian Tsarist Legion”, as well as Nikolai Nikolayevich Trushchalov, the organiser of the group’s activities abroad, are behind the operation in Spain.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Gariev often called on the “young Orthodox” to devote themselves to the “defence of Novorossiya”, i.e. to occupy the territory that is today Ukraine and annex it to Russia.

The intensive training of what Gariev calls ‘cadets’, young adventurers ready to take up arms to defend Russia’s imperial dream, lasts about seven to ten days, reportedly – 12 hours a day. In reports published on numerous portals about his military-patriotic clubs, Denis Gariev specifically addresses the participants of his training centre: “We are learning to kill!” We hope that we will never get into a situation where we hurt a living being. But if it happens, we will be ready!”

According to all the information gathered so far, the group has two training centres in St Petersburg, which are “likely to be used for forest and urban fighting, tactical weapons and hand-to-hand training.”

They are linked to Russian intelligence circles and the government in Moscow. Not so long ago, early last autumn, they publicly criticised the incompetence of the Russian leadership in the war in Ukraine and accused Putin of corruption – the New York Times points out.

Despite the fact that the group shares Moscow’s goals – to undermine Western governments and sow chaos in Europe – Russian intelligence could influence its operations, according to US officials.

Although the movement has been very active since 2002, when it was founded by Vorobyov, the organisation, and especially its military arm led by Gariev, was only seen as a global threat in 2016, when two Swedes visited St Petersburg and spent 11 days there training, at Gariev’s behest.

A few months later, these two Swedes and another person carried out a series of terrorist attacks in the Swedish city of Gothenburg. First, in November 2016, they detonated a bomb in front of a café, and two months later, they bombed a migrant centre, seriously injuring one person. Three weeks after that, another bomb was planted in a refugee camp …

They were arrested, tried and found guilty by the Swedish authorities. The prosecutor in charge of the case accused the Russian imperial movement of radicalising them and preparing them for the attacks.

Three years later, in November 2019, a representative of the Russian Imperial Movement gave a speech at an international conference in Madrid organised by the neo-Nazi far-right Spanish political party ‘National Democracy’ and attended by members of the Alliance for Peace and Freedom.

WASHINGTON, LONDON, PRAGUE, SOFIA…

The radical group Russian Imperial Movement is only part of the “secret forces” that Vladimir Putin’s regime is using to destabilise parts of Europe.

A study by New York Times journalists pinpoints the Kremlin’s points of influence in recent years, as well as the influence of the Russian agency network.

The Russian officers behind the Madrid bombing campaign work for the General Directorate, commonly referred to as the GRU, one of the more aggressive intelligence agencies in Moscow, according to US officials quoted by the New York Times journalists.

According to these operational findings, the group has carried out fierce and deadly covert operations with impunity in recent years.

Members of the agency have been involved in a range of questionable activities, from meddling in the 2016 US presidential election to the downing of a Malaysian civilian airliner over Ukraine in 2014, the Times report warns.

One particular part of the agency, Unit 29155, has attempted to destabilise Europe through coup attempts and assassinations. The unit’s operatives include Russian war veterans, and the unit was so secret that most GRU operatives probably did not know it existed. US and allied officials only became aware of the unit in the last few years. US officials suspect that Russian officers involved in the operation in Spain were part of the 161st Specialist Training Centre, which is based in eastern Moscow among other groups – Unit 29155, US media report.

In recent years, Russian informants have attracted more attention from counter-intelligence and police departments as they conduct increasingly high-profile operations, especially in Europe.

For example, in 2018, an attempt was made to assassinate Sergei V. Skripal and his daughter by poisoning them at their home in England. Skripal is a former GRU officer recruited by the UK as a spy. Skripal and his daughter barely survived and one British woman died. Russian agents also carried out bombings and assassination attempts in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria and an attempted coup in Montenegro, according to unnamed European intelligence officials who have analysed for the New York Times the link between the events and Moscow’s malign influence.

But all this is “the tip of the Russian intelligence iceberg” and only part of Moscow’s secret operations uncovered so far. Although it is still often referred to as the GRU, which stands for the ‘Main Intelligence Directorate’ of the Russian military command, the agency changed its name in 2010 to the Main Directorate, or GU.

However, the methods and operations have not changed.

… ALL THE WAY TO PODGORICA AND FURTHER

The 2016 Montenegrin terror attempt is a piece in the mosaic of Russia’s covert power to influence political processes in Europe and the Western Balkans and to counter Western influence through various subversive actions.

In a series of articles, Pobjeda, with the help of a number of Western sources and an investigation by the Montenegrin Special Prosecutor’s Office, has published a series of information on the involvement of GRU agents Eduard Shishmakov and Vladimir Popov in the run-up to the parliamentary elections. Western intelligence, which was seen during the investigation in Montenegro and the subsequent trial for attempted terrorism before the Podgorica High Court, revealed the activities of GRU agents.

In particular, in the creation and financing of a network of activists, in fact radical Serbian extremists, who were to cause chaos at a planned rally of supporters of the pro-Russian and pro-Serb Democratic Front, a political rival to the parties of the sovereignist bloc led by Milo Đukanović, on 16 October 2016.

Subsequent research by the international network Bellingket (Bellicat) revealed that the GRU members engaged in Montenegro were part of the notorious Unit 29155 of the 161st Special Training Centre of the GRU. Western intelligence sources have established that this unit trained communist guerrilla cadres in Asia, Africa and Central America during the Cold War.

It survived “perestroika” and found a new purpose under Vladimir Putin’s regime – to carry out numerous “black operations” in Europe, as well as in the US and Latin America.

At the end of November 2019, in a follow-up to the failed “black operation” in Bulgaria, a joint investigation by the Bellingket Investigative Network, Insider and the German weekly Der Spiegel revealed the pseudonyms of at least six members of Unit 29155: Vladimir Popov, Nikolai Koninikin, Ivan Lebedev, Danil Stepanov, Sergei Pavlov and Georgi Gorshkov, in charge of security and logistics. Twenty GRU agents were identified, including Eduard Shishmakov.

The aforementioned Vladimir Popov was on the list of important informants within the Russian “secret power” forces prior to the operation in Montenegro and Moldova. Like his “comrade” Eduard Shishmakov, also involved in the events in Montenegro, who was in the espionage operation in Poland …

How Abazovic stopped a campaign to detect Russian spies in Montenegro

On 30 September, Montenegrin media reported that the search for Russian spies in Montenegro, led by the Sava Kenter National Security Agency in cooperation with Western partner agencies, had resulted in the arrest of two Montenegrin citizens, the expulsion of six Russian diplomats and the entry ban on 28 foreigners living on Montenegrin territory.

The operational action was carried out by members of the Special Police Department of the Special Prosecutor’s Office in cooperation with ANB agents. Subsequently, several locations in Podgorica were searched for evidence of cooperation between Montenegrin and Russian citizens with Russian intelligence services.

During the operation, Radomir Sekulovic, a retired Montenegrin Foreign Ministry official, and Vladimir Vlatko Belojevic, a businessman and friend of Sekulovic, were arrested.

Sekulović was initially remanded in custody for up to 72 hours on charges of illegal possession of weapons and was then sent to house arrest. Sekulovic was suspected of making suspicious contacts with agents linked to Russian services via Belojevic’s phone.

The expulsion of six staff members of the Russian embassy in Podgorica for violating the Vienna Convention was immediately welcomed by British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly on 30 September last year.

The UK stands with Montenegro in taking this action to protect its sovereignty and security against hostile Russian activities, Cleverly tweeted.

However, it turns out that the action against the Russian agent network was carried out without the knowledge of outgoing Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic or any other member of his government.

A counter-measure followed: just a few days later, Dritan Abazovic dismissed ANB Director Sava Kentera, and later SDP Ministers Ranko Krivokapic and Rasko Konjevic.

The international campaign to combat Russian malign influence has thus been put on “standstill”. The new ANB leadership, led by Boris Milić and Abazović’s close friend Artan Kurti, did not rise to the occasion. Neither did Prime Minister Abazovic, who no longer mentions the “status” of the international campaign to expose the Russian agent network./Pobjeda/