Vulin’s dirty spy game for the Kremlin that made him BIA Director

Aleksandar Vulin, who was elected today as the new director of the BIA, was the main actor in the international scandal when a group of Russian oppositionists led by Vladimir Kara-Murza and Andrei Pivovarov were followed and wiretapped in Belgrade in May 2021.

This action resulted in the arrest of Pivovarov, who was sentenced to five years in prison, followed by the arrest of Kara-Murza in April this year, who, according to Russian lawyer Dimitri Zakhvatov, is also in prison for an act that Vulin carried out together with Patrushev.

“Pivovarov was arrested because Vulin took the content of the wiretapped conversations to Nikolai Patrushev. And Vladimir Kara-Murza was arrested largely because of this. In Russia, this is how these things are done – if they get enough material to label you a traitor by their standards, they take you to court. The formal reason for Kara-Murza’s arrest is said to be a meeting in Arizona, where he spoke about the war in Ukraine,” said Zahvatov.

How the wiretapping operation was carried out

Two weeks after his visit to Belgrade, in June 2021, Andrei Pivovarov of Open Russia was arrested at St Petersburg airport. His team reported at the time that the police had questioned him, searched his apartment and initiated criminal proceedings for allegedly violating Russian legislation on “undesirable organisations”.

It soon emerged that Pivovarov had gone to prison because of Vulin’s cooperation with the security services of the Russian Federation. This was revealed in an interview with our portal by opposition MP Vladimir Kara-Murza, who stated that Russian citizens were followed and eavesdropped on while in Belgrade.

“We gathered in a hotel in Novi Belgrade. The gathering lasted for a week and we immediately noticed that we were being followed. Whenever we met on the street, someone would stand behind us and follow our movements. In restaurants, when we went out for lunch, someone would sit next to us and listen to what we were talking about. It was so obvious and absurd. Even when we took a boat trip on the Danube, we were always accompanied by another boat. Although it was even funny, we now see that this was done on purpose and that the Serbian services did it in order to show that the Serbian Minister Vulin was a loyal dog of Putin’s Secretary Patrushev. All our conversations at the meeting were recorded. Let me say that I hope that Vulin and Patrushev learned something from listening to them,” Kara-Murza said in an interview with Nova.

What the transcript of the conversation between Vulin and Patrushev says

The transcript of the conversation obtained by our daily says that Vulin explained to Patrushev that he was aware of the activities of the organisation “Open Russia”, which he said had the support of the West and “works against Russian interests.”

“He promised that Serbia would regularly inform the Russian side about its activities and members,” the document said, noting that Vulin said the fight against colour revolutions was extremely important for Serbia.

At the same time, the Russian side, according to the document, informed its Serbian counterparts about the development of its information system, which allows monitoring of facilities and surveillance of suspicious persons, and Minister Vulin recalled the outstanding cooperation between the two MUPs. , adding that they exchange around 500 pieces of information with the Russian side annually.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man and a comrade of Andrei Pivovarov, told the daily “Nova” that Pivovarov had done nothing illegal, but that he would certainly face the maximum penalty regardless.

“No matter under which article independent politicians are accused, no matter how absurd and unfounded the accusations, the verdict is almost always a conviction. The article of the law that Pivovarov is charged with threatens up to six years in prison. I fear that his sentence will be close to the maximum,” Khodorkovsky said.

And the sentence was indeed close to the maximum. Pivovarov was sentenced to four years in prison.

How much Vulin’s behaviour cost us

The actions of Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin and his cooperation with Nikolai Patrushev have put Serbia on the European Parliament’s agenda. In a resolution on our country, the EP states that it is concerned about the establishment of a working group against colour revolutions by the Serbian and Russian governments, the purpose and objectives of which remain unclear. The document also condemned the eavesdropping on opposition MPs.

“We express our concern about the allegations of wiretapping of Russian opposition figures in Belgrade by the Serbian authorities and the alleged subsequent delivery of material to the Russian security services,” the final version of the resolution reads.

If he is the newly elected Director of the BIA, as Minister of Police he ordered the wiretapping of Russian opposition figures in Belgrade and delivered the content of their conversations to his colleagues in Moscow. As a logical question, what would he have done if he was in charge of the BIA, given that the wiretapping centre is in the Agency./Nova.rs/