Russian intelligence officers facilitate crimes abroad by travelling under fake names – The Insider

Insider journalists have found evidence that members of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) travelled abroad to facilitate crimes under fake names and with non-existent professions.

Source: The Insider

Details: Unit 29155 is an elite Russian task force suspected of poisoning former GRU officer Sergei Skripal [a former Russian military officer and double agent for British intelligence services – ed.] and his daughter Yuliia in the UK in 2018, attempting to poison Bulgarian businessman Emilian Gebrev in 2015, attempting a coup d'état in Montenegro in 2016, and exploding ammunition storage points and weapons factories in Bulgaria from 2011 to 2020.

According to media reports, Ivan Zhigarev, who has been working for the unit since at least 2009, has a fake identity – Ivan Zhikharev, a geologist specialising in drilling water wells. He travelled abroad with false IDs at the time when the Skripals were being poisoned.

The Insider journalists write that Zhigarev was taken out of the case when his name was revealed in 2022 by the French authorities as one of several names of GRU officers who visited a secret GRU base in that country.

Another person mentioned by The Insider is Maxim Rodionov, a GRU lieutenant colonel who has been operating under the name Smirnov and "working" as a documentary filmmaker since 2014. He has repeatedly travelled abroad on business trips.

The Insider reviewed Smirnov's employment record, which shows that in 2015-2016 he worked for Prosto Media, but the organisation said that it was registered only in September 2016 and started operating in 2018, and no one under the name of Smirnov has worked there.

He later co-founded the Tomiris video production studio. Journalists believe that the company could have been a cover for organising events involving international delegations.

Another fake identity, Konstantin Medvedev, acted under his real name, perhaps because he had already visited Europe before joining Unit 29155, so biometrics could have compromised his identity. When Medvedev was already a member of the special intelligence group, he visited Helsinki, Bishkek, Paris, Vienna, and Prague.

He worked as a "foreign journalist" for the magazine Marine Insurance, as well as for the Tribuna outlet, which is now closed. However, no materials written by him were found.

According to a tax statement, The Insider says that Medvedev received 45 million roubles (about US$492,000) in 2021, while the average salary of an officer in Russia is about 50,000 roubles (about US$545).

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