Inside Wagner Gate: Ukraine's brazen assassination to trap Russian mercenaries-bellingcat

2021-11-24 02:44:45 By : Mr. Jimmy Wu

The Bellingcat Investigation Team is an award-winning group of volunteers and full-time investigators who are at the core of Bellingcat's investigations.

A year-long investigation by Bellingcat and Insider revealed that the operation that led to the capture of 33 mercenaries in Minsk in July 2020 was actually orchestrated by the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service GUR MOU with the support of the Ukrainian counterintelligence unit. Domestic intelligence agency, SBU. By falsely recruiting mercenaries for the now-defunct Private Military Contractor (PMC), the operation aims to lure dozens of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian citizens who, according to the assessment of the Ukrainian authorities, committed serious crimes while fighting for Russia -Support military entities in the east of the country. As part of the notorious Wagner Private Military Contractor (PMC), many (but not all) targeted mercenaries have fought in the Donbass region of Ukraine. Others participated in the fighting as part of a Russian-sponsored “volunteer army”, while others worked directly for Russia’s military or security services. Most of the targeted men served as mercenaries for the Wagner Group at some point, whether in Ukraine or later in Syria, Libya or the Central African Republic (CAR).

Illustration (c): Ann Kiernan of Bellingcat.

At the end of 2019 and early 2020, several special operations commanders with successful extradition experience transitioned from SBU to GUR MOU. Under their influence, the stinging action formed a more concrete-even more ambitious-outline. The task became to lure, detain and prosecute a core organization composed of dozens of mercenaries. At this point, the SBU participated in the project planning with the purpose of creating a shortlist of targets whose alleged crimes can be fully verified and are therefore assessed as likely to be convicted in court.

According to three former security officials who have spoken to Bellingcat, the final action plan was submitted to and approved by Ukrainian political leaders in early July 2020. These included the arrest and detention of 33 mercenaries to transport the targets to their fictitious deployment destinations by emergency landing an aircraft on Ukrainian territory. Choosing Minsk, Belarus as the starting point for the journey is a compelling situation (no commercial flights departing from Russia during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown) and convenient. The flight from Minsk to Istanbul, which is a transit hub to any reasonable number of destinations, requires the plane to enter Ukrainian airspace for approximately 28 minutes-just enough for an emergency landing at Boryspil Airport in Kiev.

On July 25, a bus carrying mercenaries crossed the border from Russia into Belarus. This bold operation seemed to proceed as planned.

But at the last minute, a controversial decision was made to postpone the active part of the operation for a few days. The new departure date to Turkey is set on July 30. The mercenary group will first check into the Minsk hotel and then the hot spring hotel outside the city, waiting for the delay. In the early morning of the penultimate day of the hotel, Belarusian special agents stormed into the hotel. They detained mercenaries and inadvertently disrupted the rest of the Ukrainian assassination operation.

The timeline and background of the events recorded in this investigation were compiled based on dozens of interviews with participants in the assassination: Russian mercenaries who fell for the Ukrainian conspiracy and former Ukrainian intelligence who participated in various operations personnel. operate. Both groups talked with Bellingcat to eliminate false information narratives they believed to be circulating in Russia and Ukraine.

To verify the claims of these sources, Bellingcat's investigation team analyzed and verified hundreds of electronic documents, including job applications filled out by mercenaries, photos of military awards and medals, letters of recommendation from former military commanders, and their emails Health records given. Their fictitious new employer. Crucially, the analysis covered hundreds of audio files collected during the false sign recruitment process. Some of these files and audio components have been leaked to Ukrainian media; however, their authenticity has not been independently verified.

Bellingcat also verified key parts of the timeline of the incident with the Provisional Investigation Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament. This committee independently of Bellingcat investigated the circumstances surrounding the alleged failure of the same assassination.

A detailed classification of the technical methods applicable to this story can be found in a companion article here, including our reasoning to include information from unnamed sources.

According to interviews with four former Ukrainian secret service personnel and former Ukrainian President Peter Poroshenko who requested to discuss confidential matters anonymously, the Ukrainian military intelligence agency GUR MOU and the domestic security agency SBU began to collect data and create personal profiles. In early 2014, Russian militants— -Including mercenaries-fighting in the east of the country. The SBU, which also has law enforcement and investigation functions, began to compile criminal files on individual militants convicted of serious crimes.

By mid-2018, the Ukrainian intelligence services had a detailed understanding of the structure, practices, and composition of Russian PMCs, mainly the so-called Wagner PMC, which was affiliated with and funded by the entrepreneur Evgeny Prigozhin close to the Kremlin. As Wagner PMC rearranged mercenaries from Ukraine to other hotspots such as Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, and other African countries, Ukrainian intelligence agencies learned more about the recruitment, promotion, and rotation methods of military contractors. And their interaction with Russia. Security service.

According to the above-mentioned former secret service personnel, two of these insights became key knowledge for future assassination operations. First of all, PMC mercenaries take turns to perform tasks and must wait for their next job in their hometown or village, which sometimes takes months or years. This forces them to look for alternative jobs at the same time. Second, the PMC market in Russia is neither homogenized nor centralized: Although Prigozhin's Wagner Group has the largest number of government-supported overseas businesses since 2014, and almost completely trusts combat operations, there are still a few more companies. Small companies are controlled or tolerated by the Russian security services. They provide non-combat services-such as providing security for valuable cargo or protecting resources for overseas Russian companies.

Based on these insights, the Ukrainian intelligence community has formed a rough outline of a bold plan. The goal is to trap a small number of Russian mercenaries who are looking for work and have a history of violent crime in eastern Ukraine. They will be lured to a place where they can be detained, extradited and handed over to Ukrainian courts for prosecution. Early discussions included the idea of ​​lure two to five idle mercenaries to a paramilitary training camp in Hungary, where they would participate in a fictitious course to improve their safety training level-this is to gain more in the PMC world. A prerequisite for a high salary grade. The extraction sites in the Baltic countries also consider a similar concept of small scale.

On June 27, 2019, the joint operation of GUR MOU and SBU in Russian-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine successfully found a Ukrainian citizen, Vladimir Tsemakh, who has been wanted for murder since he became the commander of local militants in 2014. Snizne. When he was the air defense commander of Snizhne, the BUK provided by Russia deployed outside the village shot down flight MH17, killing all 298 people on board. This made Tsemakh an important witness for the illegal shooting, and possibly an accomplice-which made his arrest a more significant achievement of the Ukrainian intelligence services (Tsemakh was subsequently handed over to Russia as part of the prisoner exchange, despite Ukraine’s request ) The Dutch and Australian governments handed him over to a joint investigation team investigating the shooting down. )

Although the Ukrainian intelligence services suffered casualties in this attack (one officer was killed by stepping on a landmine and another was seriously injured), the operation inspired GUR MOU and the fifth bureau (which is responsible for Kiev and surrounding areas) SBU counterintelligence unit.

The ad hoc joint intelligence team managed to conduct surveillance and detention operations deep in Russian-controlled territory. The team secretly passed the sedated suspect through a Russian-controlled border post by placing the sedated suspect in a wheelchair and pretending that he was a sick relative in Ukraine who needed urgent medical care. Perhaps most importantly, this operation proved that Russia’s security services did not have a firm grasp of the whereabouts and safety of potentially important witnesses and/or arrest targets.

According to the former GUR MOU agent, the successful extradition of Tsemakh and his knowledge of Russian security vulnerabilities caused the special operations team to reconsider its early plans. It is now considering more ambitious assassinations against dozens or even hundreds of suspects.

As of September 2019, GUR MOU has accumulated background personal data of more than 2,000 former mercenaries, including current employment status, whereabouts and contact information. Most of them fought in eastern Ukraine at some point between 2014 and 2018.

Therefore, Ukrainian intelligence agencies already know whom to target. The only question is how.

According to the same former special operations personnel, around this time, a bold idea was presented at the GUR MOU brainstorming meeting. The idea is to establish a fake PMC to recruit former mercenaries. The initial goal is to collect first-hand evidence and possibly confess to crimes committed in Ukraine. As the second phase of the operation, the GUR MOU working group considered the option of lure a small group of shortlisted mercenaries to an international "mission" and ensure that they were arrested outside Russia. However, the second stage is not static, because even the initial evidence collection stage is attractive and ambitious enough.

To achieve this goal, a six-member special operations team began to write a cover story and detailed combat plan. To minimize the risk of compromise, they work in isolation. The cover story requires three key components: a credible PMC recruiting entity, a credible international mission, and a convincing project manager, possibly from the Russian Secret Service, or "kurator."

If they have any hope to lure mercenaries, the team needs a reasonable cover for the employer. Therefore, the team made a bold choice and secretly recruited the real but abandoned PMC established in St. Petersburg in 2012. "PMC MAR" can boast of participating "for the benefit of the Russian state" in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The “DNR” claims that the government is one of the separatist entities in eastern Ukraine supported by Russia, and even praised MAR’s “delivery of humanitarian assistance”. Its website was still active as of the end of 2019, and announced that the company would "support national interests if the country cannot legally fulfill its obligations." The raucous public statement of its founder Alexey Marushchenko (he claimed in 2015 that the company had deployed 70 people in Donbass and plans to send more people to Syria and Libya) to help promote it Rise to fame among aspiring mercenaries. At the same time, international investigators such as the Conflict Intelligence Team listed PMC MAR as an example of a "shell" military contractor. On PMC's social media pages, people complained that their contact numbers and emails did not respond to job applications.

All of this makes PMC MAR the perfect bait for the planned assassination.

Alexey Marushenko, founder of PMC MAR, second from left (source)

In order to intercept the recruitment inquiries received, the GUR MOU team registered a similar domain name and a cloned website chvk-mar.org in September 2019 (the original MAR website is chvk-mar.ru). This also provides them with an email domain for communicating with job applicants.

Now, the team must find a reliable destination for its fake recruitment campaign. By the end of 2019, Wagner PMC was Russia's exclusive agent army for international use. This means that those who shape the stinging action must strike a good balance. They need to create a potentially dangerous mission, which requires mercenary military experience. It must also appear to be legitimate and in the interests of the Russian state to prevent suspicion among applicants. This came in the form of a mission to protect Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft's oil facilities in the Middle East. As of the end of 2019, Rosneft was operating oil wells in the area. According to reports, Russian private security companies had business dealings with Syrian oil companies. In Iraq, Rosneft’s existing oil wells are close to the front line and naturally need to be protected. The team decided to use Rosneft as a fictitious customer for the upcoming security mission. To this end, the team once again registered the decoy domain name office-rosneft.org through the Russian registrar. This domain will be used for e-mail communication with candidates.

An analysis of the DNS history of the domain names chvk-mar.org and office-rosneft.org showed that they were registered with each other within 9 days of late September 2019, passing Bellingcat in accordance with the schedule provided by the former operator interviewed.

Every grand story needs a protagonist. Therefore, the GUR MOU planning team added the services of special operations personnel with actual combat experience. This man is known by his pen name "Sergey Petrovich", and he is well versed in the conflict in Donbass and the jargon and cultural references used by Russian mercenaries. He volunteered to act as a fake recruiter and Kurat for the project, allegedly representing Russia's secret service.

Since investigators only knew his identity, Bellingcat was unable to interview this person. Information about the person’s role in the assassination came from interviews with former agents and an analysis of recordings of hundreds of work "interviews" conducted by "Sergey Petrovich" and dozens of candidate mercenaries.

According to the former agent interviewed, another important source of the project was a former mid-level officer of the Russian foreign military intelligence agency GRU, who was deployed to the "DNR" a few years ago. In 2019-after returning to Russia and retiring-on the advice of his Ukrainian handlers in the GUR Memorandum of Understanding, he proposed to look for work for the Russian Armed Forces again. This ensures that the internal staff of the planning team can provide information and risk alerts. It is hoped that he might help to further legitimize recruitment.

Just like "Sergey Petrovich", Bellingcat could not be contacted and could not determine the true identity of this GRU officer. Information about his role in the assassination only comes from interviews with former agents.

With convincing Russian intelligence assets, the sting can really begin. The above clone of the PMC MAR website includes contact information replaced by email and phone numbers controlled by GUR MOU. In order to trigger new inquiries, some vaguely worded job postings were posted on classified Russian websites that had previously been used to recruit mercenaries.

In the list of the popular Russian classified ads website Avito.ru, under the heading St. Petersburg/Security Job Posting, a user who calls himself "Alekseev" posted the following security posts on September 25, 2019 (the original Russian list can It is seen here, archived here).

From the background of job applications analyzed by Bellingcat and job interviews recorded, "Alekseev" seems to be the so-called "HR Director" of the fictitious PMC MAR.

The first job list of Operation Avito Sting, signed by "Alekseev"

The list announced a job with a monthly salary of 225,000 rubles (approximately US$3,200/2,900 euros), implying a job abroad to protect company assets. Requires weapon operation experience and training certificate, which is obviously to filter applicants who have no combat experience.

The employer page shows that it received two critical comments in January and April 2020. Both users complained about being asked to send their application documents to the "manager", but received no feedback. The employer "Alekseev" stated in its response on March 31 that the recruitment has ended and expressed regret for the negative feedback.

"Guys, don't believe this liar. They ask you to send documents claiming that some managers will answer you, and then no one answers. They keep their distance completely. As for why he or they need anything from you, well, what you can do It’s just speculation,” Sergey wrote in response to Avito’s listing.

According to interviews with former GUR MOU agents, these comments are the result of false recruitment campaigns attracting too many applicants who are not suitable for their goals. Although some people have military experience, they did not fight in the Donbass and are not interested in Ukrainian military intelligence. In fact, the e-mail sent by the applicant to the e-mail account info@office-rosneft.org controlled by GUR MOU and shared with Bellingcat indicated that although they were not involved in the operation in eastern Ukraine, at least some of them had participated in the battle. In the two conflicts after the Soviet Union's Afghanistan War and the disintegration of Chechnya.

An example of an email sent by the applicant (AA Khasanov), which contains a large number of attachments and documents proving previous military service.

According to Bellingcat interviewees, after receiving too many irrelevant applications, mainly from people with little intelligence value, the operations team decided to change its strategy. They need a more targeted approach to generate more-and more importantly, more prominent-goals.

In April 2020, a key Ukrainian special operations personnel who had supervised the search operation of Tsemakh in the SBU counterintelligence unit was appointed to be responsible for the "Project Avenue", which was officially given the code name of Operation Sting and was in charge of what the Ukrainian media later called it As the "Wagner Gate". This officer, unlike the godfather of the original plan, came from a security background and gave a more active push to the previous intelligence-driven operations.

After evaluating the available applications and other information gathered, "Sergey Petrovich" began interviewing some of the most promising candidates. His task is to determine whether any one of them can be used as a proxy recruiter for other related targets. This method is similar to the snowball recruiting practice provided by social scientists for interviewees. The agent explained that in order to achieve this goal, "Petrovich" obtained a special untraceable phone, no SIM card, and a caller ID spoofing software that displayed Syrian phone numbers-the mercenaries were told of their Kura He is currently in Syria.

The two early applicants who submitted job applications in September 2019 appeared to fit the description. One of them seems particularly promising: Artem Milyayev, born in 1981. Milyayev not only wrote that he had accumulated military experience in Chechnya, Donbass and Syria-he also mentioned that he had served as the deputy commander of the "DNR" assault brigade, where he commanded more than 100 fighters. In the first communication with the "Human Resources Manager", he proposed to recruit from his old subordinates. Both his comrades in arms and Ukrainian intelligence know him, and his call sign is "Shaman".

In April 2020, "Sergey Petrovich" contacted the "Shaman" again with a fake Syrian number and asked how many of his 120 mercenaries could be hired for the PMC MAR project. Milyaev responded that he needed to double check and call each of them again. He explained that “too much time has passed”, probably because he first proposed a recruitment network at the end of 2019, “as many as half of them may have signed with musicians”. The term "musician" is a coded reference to the Wagner PMC that is widely used in calls heard by Bellingcat. Bellingcat’s Russian interviewees confirmed its importance and the importance of other code words used by mercenaries.

"Sergei Petrovich" then asked if there were any experienced snipers in the group. "Shaman" replied that he knew five snipers who had experience in using 0.338 caliber sniper rifles in Syria. They also discussed the need for other experienced fighters, including artillery observers and large-caliber machine gunners.

The "shaman" was also heard asking "Petrovich" about the "money status" and whether the payment was in cash or by bank card. "Sergey Petrovich" instructed Milyaev to submit all funding issues to "E-mail from the Human Resources Department".

A few days later, "Petrovich" called Milyayev again, apparently after the latter sent an e-mail to the "Human Resources Department", he prepared a list of available personnel. On the phone, the "shaman" said that he was ready to serve, had a list of ten fighters, and would send a detailed list including their names, professions, language skills, and yellow fever immunity status. Milyayev asked "Petrović" to call each soldier in person so that "they can see where you are calling from"-a reference for Syrian caller ID-to make sure that the operation was legal. Milyayev asked "Petrović" how many positions are still vacant? "Petrovic" replied that if they have relevant experience, they can recruit up to 50 more people.

At the end of the call, Petrovich and Milyayev reached an agreement on the process of cooperation with the applicant. The latter sent a group of 10 fighters from "Petrović" at a time, and then "Petrović" would call each of them, referring to "Shaman". After reviewing each candidate, they will be referred to Milyaev, who will collect their resumes and supporting documents via email.

In the next two months, "Petrovic" made more than 40 calls to Milyaev (all calls were provided to Bellingcat and reviewed by Bellingcat). Every time I receive a new call, I can hear that "Petrovic" is training "Shaman" to believe that he will become the commander of the new operation, and promises that he can freely choose his lieutenant and organize troops according to his wishes. He also allowed him to carry his cell phone freely (no other fighters allowed). It can also be heard that "Perovich" encourages Milyaev to recruit fighters with recent combat experience, especially snipers and those with air defense and artillery reconnaissance experience-all of these qualifications may once again narrow the scope of recruitment to possible crimes. When the person under the indictable crime was deployed in eastern Ukraine.

By early May 2020, "Sergey Petrovich" told Milyayev that the entire project will require three platoons, about 50 fighters, and each platoon will have a platoon leader who reports to Milyayev. Petrovich also instructed Milyayev to recruit the first platoon that will leave within a few weeks. The two agreed to provide financial incentives for the "shaman"-for each application form he filled out, he would receive 2,000 rubles (24 Euros/28 US dollars).

The decision to outsource recruitment to a "shaman" quickly brought results to the planning team of GUR MOU. By the end of May, the fake PMC had received dozens of new applications, all using "shaman" as a reference. The forms sent to the applicant have been carefully designed and look similar to the forms previously used by the original PMC MAR. Each form bears the “PMC MAR” stamp and the name of “Human Resources Director Alexeyev” printed on it And acronyms-the same list as the name that posted the job. These forms were eventually filled out by more than 200 applicants and contained complete personal data, including current address, phone number and email, height, weight and shoe size, education and military experience. All of these have been seen by Bellingcat.

An example of a “PMC MAR” application form filled out by a mercenary. Receipt confirmation stamp with "AS Alekseev"

After the candidate "approved" at the end of Kurat's casting, everyone was told to send his detailed (military) resume, along with any military experience certificates, medical certificates, commanders’ military recommendation letters and scanned copies Military awards and medals are given to the "shaman" and a simple message: "Tell him you are approved".

The applicant got his wish. By early June 2020, two email accounts controlled by GUR MOU had received hundreds of pages of detailed handwritten confessions concerning their role in the wars in eastern Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa, and the names of their commanders The photos of the medals awarded are the Kremlin or the two unrecognized republics in eastern Ukraine, and even the unprecedented video and photo materials of the downing of a Ukrainian military helicopter in the Donbass in 2014.

A screenshot of the phone video shows the aftermath of the downing of the Ukrainian helicopter sent by Denis Kharitonov via email (on the second photo)

The combatants’ resumes also contain details of how the mixed war with Russia in Ukraine developed. Some militants described their arrival in Donbass in 2014 as “under the cover of rebels,” while other militants described their presence as a direct deployment of regular Russian troops. Crucially, the GUR MOU team started to notice the names in the applicants. They knew that SBU colleagues had wanted them because they believed that serious crimes were committed in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015.

Here is a randomly selected biography sent to PMC MAR:

Artyom Shatsky's autobiography sent to PMC MAR, acknowledging that he served in the Zarya battalion of the militia fighting for "LNR" Russia-backed separatist entities in eastern Ukraine in 2014. He also admitted to serving in the Luhansk region of Ukraine in 2015 in the Russian Motorized Rifle Brigade.

The autobiography and false Rosneft email address sent by Vitaly Taranet to PMC MAR indicate that he had served as an officer in the artillery unit and participated in the Battle of Debaltsev in 2015.

O. Tkachenko sent PMC MAR’s autobiography acknowledging that it had been deployed in Syria for six months

The winning confirmation photo sent by Alexander Rudenko to PMC MAR. It confirmed that he was awarded the "Return to Crimea" medal from the Russian Ministry of Defense on May 7, 2014. The position he claims proves that he played a military role in the illegal occupation of the peninsula.

Many new employees also provided internal data on how the Russian government supports and directs the seemingly private Wagner PMC operations. In a hypothetical job interview with Alexander Krivenko (arguably the most senior official recruited by the GUR MOU team), the lieutenant colonel described how he was recruited by the regional voenkomat (Ministry of Defense Conscription and Recruitment) in 2014. Office) instructed to form a battalion to fight in eastern Ukraine. He also told "Petrović" that he later assumed the role of "Wagner" combat training leader, which brought him to Syria and the Central African Republic, where he served as an adviser to the country's chief of staff. It is worth noting that he described a previously undisclosed training program that has been provided to the CAR Chief of Staff at the GRU Frunze Academy in Moscow. Krivenko, who was serving at Wagner PMC at the time, pointed out that he also participated in the training.

Hundreds of phone calls between "Petrović", Milyayev and recruited mercenaries indicate that by the end of May 2020, this fictitious small private army-180 men, divided into three platoons- -Has started his own organizational life. Recruits are competing for positions in the platoon; some try to bypass the "shaman" and get directly promoted by "Petrovich"; many complain about having to wait too long to start operations and pay the first salary. In a phone call on May 31, 2020, the "shaman" can be heard warning "Petrovic" to be wary of the presumed Kurat to be promoted to a specific candidate for platoon commander because "he has a backstab and conspiracy Propensity". One of the potential mercenaries was dissatisfied with his personal situation and even threatened to lodge a complaint with the Russian Security Agency FSB. Evidence indicates that the security agency took action on this prompt).

Many recruits wanted to meet their commander and "Sergey Petrovich" in person-and made several fictitious plans for gatherings in Moscow or St. Petersburg. This forced the GUR MOU team to come up with more incredible excuses to postpone such events. Fortunately for the stinging organizers, from the beginning to the middle of 2020, the Russian government introduced a series of Covid-19 lockdown measures. These provide reasonable reasons for delaying the departure date of meeting with the "boss" and deployment. As of May 2020, all airports in Russia have been closed to commercial traffic until further notice.

Milyayev himself became impatient and had to relieve the anxiety of hundreds of hypothetical subordinates, but he himself had never met Kurat himself, and did not receive any meaningful income. Although he has promised to provide 2,000 rubles for each applicant, he has not yet received the money, so he is owed 320,000 rubles (approximately US$5,000). In order to prevent the risk of mutiny at the top, the GUR MOU team decided to pay him this accrued fee in early June. This led to a new power "shaman".

Nevertheless, Operation Sting is becoming a logistical challenge: 180 recruits are clamoring to "perform the mission" and need constant attention, and "Sergey Petrovich"'s own life has become a 24-hour helpline. Let people use seven-zones to incentivize and prevent them from signing up with actual competitive mercenary projects. Project Avenue needs to either shut down or rejuvenate.

On June 2, 2020, "Sergey Petrovich" was killed in action in Syria. Or at least this is what the self-styled Rosneft project manager told the shocked "shaman" in an email.

In the next two weeks, 180 new employees frantically tried to figure out what this tragedy meant for their job prospects. Then Milyaev received a call from a Venezuelan number. The person on the other end of the phone claimed to be "Atul Pavlovich", a new Kurat who succeeded "Petrović". Like Petrovich, Pavlovich is also an agent of GUR MOU; due to his continuous work as a secret agent, his identity has not been revealed to Bellingcat.

Unlike "Petrovic", the GUR MOU team decided to place "Pavlovic" in Venezuela instead of Syria. Rosneft is also conducting drilling operations in Venezuela. The number used by "Pavlovich"-deceived by the GUR MOU team using the caller ID change application-belongs to the consular service of the Russian Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. The new kurator brings good news: Rosneft needs about the same number of experienced fighters to protect its facilities from bandits in the South American Republic.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned Russian citizens on Twitter that Hurricane Maria is approaching several Caribbean countries. It provided an official number for the Caracas Embassy-the same number that "Pavlovich" successfully spoofed.

The decision to kill "Petrovic" was made by members of the GUR MOU team as they tried to alleviate the growing dissatisfaction in the fictional mercenary brigade. They also need to buy time to decide whether and how to perform stinging surgery. They believe that the new Kurat will be a reasonable reason for further delays.

He will inherit a roster of hundreds of fighters, need to review everyone, and may need to make changes to the mission plan. At the same time, if GUR MOU decides to permanently close the Stinging Operation project, the new kurator can provide cover for the graceful exit without being affected by mercenaries — and possibly Russian intelligence — discovering that they have been cheated.

According to the confirmation from the former agents interviewed and the ad hoc investigative committee, at this time, the team members are divided into two kinds of people, they are inclined to terminate the project, while others (led by the former SBU counterintelligence officer) want to terminate the project . Continue to take the initiative-tingling. In the end, the proactive approach prevailed, and Project Avenue entered the 2.0 phase: proactive attack operations.

According to data shared by the Ad Hoc Investigative Committee and Bellingcat, the death of "Sergey Petrovich" marked the official end of the intelligence collection project that began in 2018.

The GUR MOU team used this time. They knew that it could not take more than a month without losing most of the recruits to other tasks, most likely the "musicians" of Wagner PMC, to assess the feasibility of continuing the sting operation. This will require testing various operational scenarios, and it is also important to check whether such a bold plan will receive political support.

Faced with 180 targets, they can select a subset of the prosecutors most interested in. The team tends to arrest dozens of people on a large scale. This could theoretically be achieved by forcing a plane carrying militants to land over Ukraine. But this requires very specific circumstances, especially when air travel encounters obstacles in mid-2020, it is difficult to achieve-Russian airports are under effective lockdown, and air travel in other parts of Europe has also decreased.

The team sought advice from an experienced travel agency to understand the options for flights from Russia. Obviously, for most Russians who try to take a summer flight, there is only one option: take a car or bus to Minsk, Belarus, and then fly from there to Istanbul, which is a way to take them to their final holiday destination. Hub.

However, even going to Minsk is not easy. Although under normal circumstances there are no controlled land crossings between Russia and Belarus, the Covid-19 blockade rules have led to mandatory border inspections. In addition, transit from Russia to Belarus is limited to three permitted reasons: medical treatment, business trip to work in a Belarusian state company, or transit.

The transit option through Belarus seems to be the most practical. The GUR MOU team decided to use a public bus to transport a test passenger (GUR MO property living in Russia) from Moscow to Minsk. No obstacles were foreseen; after all, the mercenaries who arrived will have ongoing flight tickets to Minsk National Airport. Therefore, the test traveler booked a flight from Minsk the day after entering Belarus. However, when he was initially prevented from entering the country, an obstacle appeared. Instead, he was taken from the bus and directed to a kiosk selling travel insurance at the border. There, he received a combination of travel insurance and a pre-stamped employment agreement with a Belarusian state-owned company for 1,000 rubles (15 US dollars). As the recent arrests in Belarus have shown, this corrupt plan has been recognized as a popular solution to the problem of border closures. Once the test traveler showed the newly filled "employment contract" to the border guards, he was allowed to enter Belarus.

The GUR MOU team checked the "fake employment" route as a reality entry mechanism for mercenaries. Nevertheless, according to Bellingcat, a former agent interviewed, crossing the border between Russia and Belarus was assessed as the most risky bottleneck in the entire operation. To allow mercenaries to leave Russian territory smoothly requires the entire team to hide under the surveillance of Russian secret agents.

Assuming that the GUR MOU team can get the mercenaries to cross the border, then the most critical part will be the forced landing of the aircraft. That part of the plan requires the most meticulous research and preparation. Not only does it need to be done in a way that is safe for commercial airliners and their passengers, but the method must also allow for denial, while appearing to be within the scope of international law.

In May 2021, Belarusian blogger and opposition activist Roman Protasevich was detained after his Ryanair flight was transferred between Athens and Vilnius to Minsk. This caused Angered the international community. The plane issued a fake bomb threat while in Belarusian airspace, and Protasevich was arrested when the plane landed. The head of Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, described the incident as a “state-backed hijacking”, and the Irish Foreign Minister told NPR that it was “wrong” and “illegal”. It also led to strong protests and further sanctions against Minsk by the European Union and the United States.

In an interview with Ukrainian TV Channel 11 on June 24, 2021, President Zelensky will be on par with Protasevich's arrest, secretly admitting the gloomy circumstances of Ukraine's own actions. However, he added that the idea of ​​the controversial action is an initiative of "other countries".

"As for the fact that it failed-I once again compared what happened in Belarus-I think, thank God, we have a firm foothold on this important issue," the president concluded.

According to the operators interviewed, it was in mid-June 2020 that the GUR Memorandum of Understanding team decided to introduce the expertise of a military colleague assigned to the Ukrainian Air Control Center (UkrAeroRukh). In this expanded group, the team considered various options for achieving the three goals.

The flight route from Minsk to Istanbul seems convenient: the aircraft on this itinerary will stay in Ukrainian airspace for approximately 28 minutes-just enough to implement emergency landing procedures under false pretexts.

Infographic by Yordan Tsalov for Bellingcat

However, if the plan is to be implemented, every second of these 28 minutes needs to be put into use.

After consulting with the Chicago Convention governing commercial air traffic, the team concluded that there are only two situations in which Ukraine can legally land an aircraft on its territory. The first situation is a medical emergency: if a passenger on a flight requires immediate medical attention, such as a heart attack, the plane will have to make an emergency landing at the nearest airport. Technically, the nearest airport after crossing Ukrainian airspace will be one of Kiev’s two airports. However, the distance from the Ukrainian border to Minsk airport has not increased significantly, and the pilot may choose to return to Belarus. If the sting is successful, this makes the risk of a medical emergency too great.

The second situation is a bomb threat on board. In this case, once the respective ground control departments learn of the threat, they can decide on their own to instruct the aircraft to land on the airport of their choice—because the assumed explosion risk will not only affect the passengers, but also the population on the ground. In addition, according to international law, Ukrainian air control authorities can instruct pilots not to notify passengers of emergencies or even changes in flight routes. Since this seemed more convenient and less risky, the GUR MOU team made the choice.

In the event of an emergency landing, a warning was issued to pilots flying over Ukrainian airspace. . Source

A preliminary combat plane was conceptualized for this scenario. This will require people who are actually located at the Minsk airport to call Ukraine’s air traffic control department to issue a warning, reminding them that they have credible reasons to believe that a bomb was placed on their flight. In this particular case, the cover story is that this person overheard two male passengers in an airport cafe discussing their hostility towards Ukraine and appeared to be discussing terrorist acts on board. The call must be made when the aircraft enters Ukrainian airspace.

In order to minimize the risk of leaks and maximize reasonable denials, the GUR MOU team decided to involve only a small number of core colleagues from law enforcement agencies.

By the second half of June 2020, the GUR MOU team has 180 mercenaries willing to leave Russia. They believe this is a highly paid overseas mission that lasts for several months. With the change of kurators, the cover story of the mission has also changed-"Artur Pavlovich", unlike "Sergey Petrovich", is responsible for the safety of Rosneft's oil wells in Venezuela, so the former fighters are preparing to leave the South American country.

However, the agents knew that it was not feasible to capture all 180 mercenaries-on the one hand, as many Russians started flying from Minsk to summer destinations, air tickets to Turkey became scarce. This can also be counterproductive: Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have no interest in many contracted mercenaries, who have no or limited combat experience in eastern Ukraine, and have not proven that they can be prosecuted for "killing." In addition, the apparent crimes of many applicants can only be learned from the allegations they made during the recruitment process, some of which are likely to be exaggerated. The GUR MOU team estimates that their goal can only be to capture about 40 mercenaries, who may be added to the “initial platoon” deployed to Venezuela.

To this end, "Artur Pavlovich" reconfigured the command structure of 180 mercenaries and divided them into four platoons, each with approximately 45 members. The "Shaman" will retain command of the 180 Company, but will also lead the first platoon to leave, while other senior fighters-including Lieutenant Colonel Krivenke-will be in charge of the other platoons. According to the cover story, these platoons will depart for Venezuela in order, with a few days between departure batches. Logically, only the first platoon may leave—and be captured—so the point is to decide who joins the group.

The GUR MOU team needed the help of the SBU to draft a shortlist of the most important mercenaries to Ukraine from a law enforcement perspective. However, they cannot directly issue tasks to domestic intelligence agencies-they need the country's political leadership to complete.

According to the agents interviewed, this is not the only reason why GUR MOU needs the participation of the President's Office. What they are preparing is a high-risk assassination operation that may significantly increase the tension between Ukraine and Russia. They need the approval of the country’s political leadership.

According to a former agent of GUR MOU interviewed, the President of Ukraine first learned of the proposed assassination at a regular security briefing with the head of the intelligence service on June 15, 2020. Interviewees told us that President Zelensky approved the operation in principle on June 26, 2020, and requested that a substantial plan be prepared. According to former agents, the concept plan was formulated and approved by the then Secretary of Defense on July 1, 2020.

Bellingcat asked the president's office and current director of GUR MOU Kirillo Budanov to confirm the argument of the former agent that the proposed plan has been approved by the president. Mr. Budanov replied that although the intelligence agency cannot comment on individual cases due to its confidential nature, the head of the agency does not require formal approval from the President’s Office. However, he did confirm that Director GUR MOU regularly visits the office of the President and, as the top commander, informs him of the completion of the agency's mission. As of press time, the president's office did not respond.

In the description of the former agent, the two senior officials in charge of the project regularly notified the President of the progress of Project Avenue from the moment the active phase was approved by the Secretary of Defense and submitted to the President. Project: Vasily Burba, then director of GUR MOU, and Ruslan Baranetsky, deputy director of SBU. 

Once approved, the GUR MOU team can start sharing data and coordinating plans with colleagues from the Ukrainian domestic security agency SBU. The SBU is both a domestic intelligence agency and an investigation agency for major crimes such as terrorism; therefore, crimes allegedly committed during wartime in eastern Ukraine fall within its jurisdiction. SBU investigators have compiled terabytes of data on Donbass fighters, including hundreds of thousands of intercepted calls. The GUR MOU team believes that these investigators are best suited to assess the importance of each mercenary from the perspective of criminal prosecution. They can also verify these stories by trying to match some self-confessed war stories with phone interceptions.

In order to spare no effort and prevent possible digital leakage, the GUR MOU team decided not to share any collected data digitally with SBU. On the contrary, according to the agents interviewed, in the last few days of June 2020, the head of the GUR MOU team delivered to the SBU several large bags containing Manila folders containing the personal files of each mercenary.

SBU’s colleagues quickly let GUR MOU know that they are sitting on the gold mine-not only most of the roles claiming to be fighting in eastern Ukraine were verified by phone interception, but many of the people on the GUR MOU list are already in the SBU. Is on the list of wanted terrorists. Some of these fighters took part in key battles in Ilovaisk and Debaltsev, which claimed the lives of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers. Others participated in the shooting down of a Ukrainian military transport plane carrying 49 soldiers near Luhansk in June 2014-all of them were killed. Importantly, at least two mercenaries claimed to have used Russian-supplied anti-aircraft weapons in and around a location near Snizhne on certain days, which may make them useful witnesses for the ongoing MH17 trial. One of the mercenaries even talked about escorting a BUK Telar aircraft across the border between Russia and Ukraine in early July 2014-an air defense weapon of the same type as the aircraft that shot down MH17. He also appointed a high-ranking Russian official to supervise the general of weapons transit.

The SBU team quickly prepared their own shortlist of interested people-it had 28 people. For the GUR MOU team, this is a convenient number: they will increase it to about 45 with mercenaries without Ukrainian combat experience to prevent platoon members from becoming suspicious when they realize that they are all Donbass veterans.

Excerpted from the SBU shortlist, part of the title: "Individuals who colluded or could provide evidence in the process of shooting down Ukrainian planes by the Russian Federation"

In late June 2020, GUR MOU and SBU reached an agreement on the importance of carrying out assassination operations and are working together. However, in order to ensure the long-term success of the operation, they need to ensure that it is undeniable—that is, as part of law enforcement, the SBU did not formally participate in the entrapment operation involving the transfer of passenger aircraft, which may violate international law. On the contrary, once they accidentally enter Ukrainian territory, they must look as if they are only acting to arrest interested persons.

In order to achieve this tactical goal, the two teams planned a complex trick: An anonymous whistleblower will report the ongoing illegal mercenary recruitment operation to the SBU and provide the email address of info@rosneft-office (including login details) .org email account. Once the SBU responds to such a prompt, they will enter the middle of the entire virtual PMC-and be able to download all thousands of pages of guilty documents, including resumes, photos, and videos. With the help of air tickets and flight plans, the SBU can also track mercenaries' preparations for leaving Russia. Once they discover-accidentally, after receiving a bomb alert-that the plane carrying these individuals has landed at Boryspil International Airport near Kiev, they will be able to react immediately.

The SBU will also be able to obtain court-approved mercenary arrest warrants and put them on detention lists across national borders and police databases-ensuring that once the plane lands in Ukraine and border guards begin processing passengers, all targets will trigger an arrest alert. Detainees will receive an indictment immediately after being arrested.

Scanning the report to the Director of the SBU Investigation Department on July 13, 2020, he was informed that a certain "Sergey Petrovich" was illegally recruited on behalf of PMC MAR, and the initial list of 47 mercenaries was prepared to be deployed overseas.

Back in Russia, I am making intensive preparations for the upcoming trip to Venezuela. "Artur Pavlovich", the new fictional Venezuelan Kurat, has given the shaman instructions to summon an initial advance platoon of 47 people. The GUR MOU team also provided the shaman with an initial "business travel" budget for the first row of daily allowances. In order to conceal the source of funds, the funds were first transferred to Russia through the GUR MOU asset network, including citizens from Chechnya, and then used the Russian remittance service to wire transfer from Russia to the final beneficiary.

However, 47 tickets were found on a flight from Minsk to Istanbul in July, which turned out to be problematic. Through the Ukrainian travel agency selected by the team, 34 tickets were found on the flight to Turkey on July 25, and 13 more were found on the flight two days later.

The original 34 mercenaries were selected (also to maintain a high percentage of "interested people" and people unrelated to the Donbass War) to fly on July 25. The rest were told that they would take a later flight.

Therefore, 34 tickets were purchased from Minsk to Istanbul on July 15 for the first flight 10 days later. The planned return date is October 19th, and I booked a direct flight from Istanbul to Moscow (Covid-19 restrictions allow). This is consistent with the cover story of the initial deployment that will last three months. To be reasonable, another set of return tickets was booked for the second group of 14 mercenaries, even though they knew they would never be used.

"Shaman"-as the leader of the first group of travel-created a WhatsАpp group chat called "The First Group 🇷🇺" as a coordination platform for 34 travelers. He instructed the members of the group to assemble at the Moscow Central Bus Station at 8 am on July 24, where a bus transported them to Minsk. They will arrive late that night, then go directly to the airport and leave at 10:50 the next morning.

The 33 members of the first group arrived in Moscow on time, although one of them-Igor Tarakanov-was left out at the last minute and failed to appear. Milyaev gave everyone their daily allowance, a fake employment contract with a Belarusian company, a printed copy of the e-ticket and a copy of the group travel insurance. Everything seems orderly and professional. The provision of daily allowances seems to alleviate some of the concerns that have accumulated after weeks of delays and plan changes.

At 9:00 am, a bus carrying mercenaries departed for Minsk.

What the mercenaries were not told was that when they set off for Belarus, their plans for departure from Minsk had changed and their flight to Istanbul was cancelled.

According to Vassily Burba and former agents, the two high-level security commanders in charge of Project Avenue-Burba of GUR MOU and Baranetsky of SBU-arrived at the president's office the day before their mercenaries left. They said he was after the meeting. Call them immediately. Burba and Baranetsky intend to provide a final status update on the upcoming assassination. However, President Zelensky was very busy at the time, and Bulba told Bellincat that they could not see him in person.

According to Bulba, Andrei Yermak, director of the office of the president, proposed to postpone the operation for a week. The day before, President Zelensky reached an agreement with Russia and Russian-backed separatists on a ceasefire in the Donbass. He announced this at a joint press conference with the then Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga. Achievement. The ceasefire still needs the four nations of Normandy (including Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine) to sign to resolve the Donbass War, and it will take effect on July 27, 2020. According to Bulba, the President’s Office believes that if the trapping operation continues as planned and ends in detention on July 25, the ceasefire will be dead before it begins.

Bellingcat was unable to independently verify the conversation, and the President's Office did not comment on the investigation.

Bulba said that he replied that a one-week postponement was not feasible, which would cause recruits to lose confidence, or cause suspicion by Belarusian or Russian counterintelligence agencies, or both. Burba said that the representative of the president's office tried to meet with the GUR MOU team midway, and then proposed to shorten the delay to four days-the departure and capture time moved to Wednesday, July 29, 2020. This will make the ceasefire at least effective. According to Burba, the head of the intelligence department speculated that the possibility of finding a new set of tickets in such a short period of time is very small, but they promised to see what they could do.

Like the first conversation, the second conversation cannot be independently verified by Bellingcat.

The next morning, as the first 33 people had left Moscow, the GUR MOU team successfully rebooked their tickets, not Wednesday 29th, but Thursday 30th July. The tickets for the second group of 13 mercenaries were changed to Saturday, August 1. Later that morning, Bulba said he reported to the president’s office that the plan was still in progress, despite a five-day delay.

However, when the bus carrying 33 mercenaries left, the situation in Belarus was not good. The presidential election is scheduled to be held on August 9th in less than two weeks, and the political atmosphere is tense. The current President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenka, is afraid of internal and external enemies and is suppressing what he considers to be an opponent. Two days after the Belarusian domestic intelligence agency KGB announced its candidacy, the main opposition figure Syarhey Tsikhanosky was already in custody. However, on July 15, his wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, participated in the presidential election with the widespread support of the international community and sympathy with the opposition in the country.

Lukashenko’s paranoia is not limited to a hypothetical Western conspiracy to replace him. According to reports, he is also worried that his only ally, the Kremlin, will make a dangerous intervention. According to reports, at an informal meeting with members of the Belarusian media on July 9, Lukashenko stated that four GRU officials were detained in the country and that they “coordinated work with [opposition leader] Syarhey Tsikanosky”. In the video of his speech to the Belarusian Spetsnaz official on July 24 (which has since been deleted from the president’s website, but is still available through the archived version), he talked about possible attempts to create an unspecified "Maidan" [people's uprising] by using External forces are "professional soldiers" who work for large sums of money in private military companies and are experienced in "creating provocations around the world."

On the afternoon of July 24, 2020, just as Lukashenko made his belligerent speech, it was such a group of 33 experienced mercenaries who happened to arrive at the Belarusian border.

According to members of the mercenary group interviewed by Bellingcat, their initial attempts to cross the border with false contracts were unsuccessful. Although the documents they carried were more or less the same as those used by the passengers in the previous GUR MOU test, they were told that the documents were not complete. The Belarusian border guards asked these people where they were going. Some mercenaries jokingly replied that they are going to Minsk to visit their sick grandmother.

However, after a short wait at the border, it became clear that the same corrupt procedures used by the test passengers would work again. All 33 people sold the "correct" employment contract for 1,000 rubles per person and were allowed to enter Belarus.

On the way from Belarusian territory to Minsk, "Atul Pavlovich" informed Milyayev of the planned changes and directed the bus to a three-star hotel in Minsk. The travel agency booked the first for these people. Night stay. Five days' wait. Initially, these people were very upset after discovering the delay. But after the "shaman" was confirmed by "Pavlovich" that their stay in Minsk would be regarded as paid work, they breathed a sigh of relief, strictly abide by military discipline, do not drink alcohol, and do not wander around the city.

However, due to insufficient occupancy, these people cannot spend more than two days in hotels in the city center. On July 27th, 32 of the 33 people present moved to "The Belarusochka", a health resort located outside the city's borders. The remaining mercenary-the only person holding a Belarusian passport-lives with his relatives in Minsk.

One of the mercenaries, Vladimir Li and Vladimir Li, registered at the addresses of the two hotels. The data was provided by the hacker group Belarusian cyber guerrillas.

For the next three days, the men strictly followed the instructions of the "shaman". As a hotel employee later quoted by the Belarusian media said: “The salient thing about Russian men is that none of them go to entertainment venues or drink alcohol.”

Screenshot of the WhatsApp chat group: "Group 1". Shaman’s instructions include: everyone should stay in the hotel and leave only with the permission of a senior commander (Mozdok or Shaman); lunch time is from 14:00 to 15:00, dinner time is 20: 00, roll call time is 22:30 and so on. Source: From a report on the aftermath of the arrest on the Belarus-1 national television channel, July 29, 2020.

At around 7 pm on July 28, one of the mercenaries interviewed by Bellingcat said that he and his comrades had noticed an unusual minibus parked near Belusoka. They immediately recognized that it was a KGB surveillance vehicle. They did not think that this matter had much significance, assuming that the Belarusian intelligence service was just monitoring the mercenaries and ensuring that they would leave the country without causing any trouble. After all, our interviewees told us, “Given the ubiquity of the KGB in Belarus, they will definitely know that we have been booked for two days, that is, the flight on July 30.”

However, later that night, these 32 mercenaries will usher in a dramatic and unexpected surprise. Just before dawn, at 4:30 in the morning, a special forces commando from the Belarusian KGB Group A raided the hotel and fired stun grenades into their rooms through the balcony of the Russian mercenaries. Commandos wearing balaclavas handcuffed the Russians at gunpoint. Then they lay them face down on the bed, covering their heads with pillows, and at the same time—according to at least one mercenary who claimed in an interview with RT that he could see what was happening through the opening under the pillow— They ransacked the Russians' luggage and clothes looking for weapons.

After no weapons were found, after a long wait, a team of the OMON SWAT team arrived and took the Russians to the regional police station. The 33rd recruit who lived with relatives was detained later that morning.

The mercenaries were detained at the police station, handcuffed, kneeling, facing the wall for 22 hours.

The Belarusian security service detained the mercenaries in their homes outside Minsk. A report from the Belarus-1 national television channel on the aftermath of the arrest, July 29, 2020.

Just before midnight on July 29, they read out the arrest and accusation documents. The mercenaries were then transferred to the Central Police Station, where they were interrogated by what appeared to be KGB officials. Interrogators asked if the detainee knew Syarhey Tsikhanosky and Mykola Statkevich, another Belarusian activist and presidential candidate who was imprisoned at the end of May. The mercenaries said they did not know such a person. According to a mercenary who spoke with Bellingcat, the questioner seemed to sincerely believe that they were dealing with potential coup planners, and even asked the mercenaries if they might not know they would be used to overthrow the government. The rest of the group expressed the same views in the aforementioned RT news broadcast.

Despite their sincere denials, the mercenaries are still accused of cooperating with the detained opposition figures Zihanuski and Statkevich, conspiring to overthrow the government and causing public riots.

ALTUKHOV AV, VOLGIN AV KOZHEVNIKOV AY, LI VA, MASLOV SA MILYAEV VA and others, as a group of people who colluded in advance, in the Republic of Belarus, including BIAVTED RMINDESK, will carry out the project no later than May 2020 until now. They prepared to participate in large-scale riots, accompanied by acts of violence against people, violent chaos, arson, and destruction of property.

— Excerpted from the Belarusian Crime Database, provided by the hacktivist Belarusian cyber guerrillas

Detention and prosecution documents submitted to 33 mercenaries; copies sent to and obtained from one of the mercenaries interviewed by Bellingcat

On the day of the arrest, the Belarusian State Television broadcast the now infamous detention scene. Lukashenko issued a public statement accusing Russian mercenaries of coming to interfere in the upcoming elections and convening an emergency meeting of the Security Council. In the following days, he suspended the 33 detained mercenaries in front of the Ukrainian authorities and the Kremlin, implying that he was indifferent to which country would eventually acquire them, and invited everyone to give their reasons for receiving the prisoners.

Both interviews and leaked documents show that the Ukrainian authorities changed their tactics as soon as the news of the arrest came. They began to persuade Belarusian officials to release the detainees into custody in Ukraine. This requires a formal offensive line—preparation of all the accusations and extradition documents required by the law—and informal contacts with Minsk to try to trick Lukashchenka into surrendering all or at least some of the detainees.

The formal method involves serving detainees with an indictment and then notifying Belarus through legal channels that these people have been accused of serious crimes in Ukraine. An extradition request was also made. According to interviews with members of the mercenaries, some, but not all, of the 33 people received notices of criminal charges brought against them by Ukraine sent to their home addresses by registered mail. The date of these allegations is July 29, 2020, the date of the arrest in Minsk.

On July 30, 2020, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus summoned the Ukrainian temporary ambassador to Minsk, informed him of the arrest, and requested Ukraine to provide information about the crimes these individuals may have committed on Ukrainian territory.

On August 3, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine made a request to Belarus for the temporary arrest of 28 of the 33 people, awaiting a formal extradition request. The formal extradition request was submitted eight days later, on August 11, 2020.

At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities are busy making informal contacts in at least two areas. According to an interviewed member of the GUR MOU team, the SBU provided Belarusian colleagues with information about the mercenary background of the 33 men and the remaining men "recruited" by PMC MAR. On July 30, the Minsk authorities issued a statement stating that they were searching for as many as 200 men from what they called "PMC Wagner" on the territory of Belarus. This is likely the source of this clue.

In addition, President Zelensky personally lobbied for the extradition of these people to Ukraine in a phone call to President Lukashenko on August 5, 2020.

The Russian authorities initially seemed shocked by the arrests and the allegations Lukashenko made against them. The initial reaction of Kremlin officials and media friendly to the Kremlin indicated that they were confused by what the 33 men did in Minsk. After a day of silence, Dmitry Peskov, a senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, commented on the arrest on July 30, refuting the allegations that Russia tried to destabilize the situation in Belarus in any way. Belarus was asked to provide “about the Russians [being] accused.” In a statement published on the website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Moscow ambassador to Minsk insisted that the Russians were members of a private security company and were waiting for a flight. Airplane to a third country. On July 31, Putin met with the National Security Council to discuss the case, but the Kremlin's general press release after the meeting hardly mentioned what actually happened.

Several Russian citizens who had commanded the self-styled "volunteer" armed forces in eastern Ukraine issued a statement in support of the detained mercenaries. Acknowledging that some of them had fought in eastern Ukraine under their command, they assumed that they were going to a third country for missions as part of the PMC. Even a war-focused Telegram channel popular with former mercenaries explained the Russian stay in Belarus and referred to the complicated route required from Moscow to Caracas during Covid's restricted travel period.

Until August 3, 2020, Kremlin officials did not seem to realize the true background of the plight of the 33 Russians, because Peskov and the Russian consulate in Minsk both issued statements stating that these people were members of a private security company , "Going to deploy the third country", just missed their flight.

These initial Russian statements were bluntly rejected by Belarusian officials. Andrei Ravkov, chairman of the Belarusian Security Council, countered that no Russian PMC would arrange travel to a third country via Belarus without its handlers ("from FSB or GRU").

As Ukraine did, the Russian Attorney General submitted a formal request to the Belarusian Prosecutor’s Office on August 5, 2020, requesting the transfer of 32 detained Russians to Moscow. The only Belarusian citizen is obviously not included.

As of August 6, 2020, the President of Belarus seems to be conflicted about whose request to respect. He even invited the Prosecutors General of Ukraine and Russia to come to Belarus, "in accordance with the international agreement to resolve the case with the Prosecutor General of Belarus."

However, subsequent events seemed to affect his final choice.

Although the Russian authorities and intelligence agencies initially seemed ignorant of how the 33 Russian mercenaries finally arrived in Minsk, they seemed to have solved the case a week later. With unhindered access to the Internet logs of Russian suppliers, Russia's FSB has been able to trace at least part of its business connections to Ukraine. This includes the IP log data posted by the original job on the Avito classified website and the Ukrainian registration of one of the travel agencies that booked air tickets for mercenaries. These findings were published in the pro-Kremlin newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, which publicly referred to the Russian intelligence service as the source of the findings and published an interview with a disguised FSB official. On the same day, the Russian Commission of Inquiry began investigating the case.

The next day, President Putin called President Lukashenko to discuss the situation with the detainees. However, Lukashenko did not seem to be intimidated. Until August 9th-the day of the Belarusian presidential election-he was repeating that he did not believe Russia's claims about the role of "third countries" in the arrival of mercenaries.

However, what happened after the presidential election was unprecedented in Belarusian history. Mass protests and anti-government rallies broke out across the country, ignoring what many Belarusians believed the election was rigged.

It is not clear what kind of shuttle diplomacy and negotiations will take place between Moscow and Minsk in the next few days, nor whether Russia will provide and provide assistance to Lukashenka to quell large-scale protests. However, in the week following the election, at least three Russian military and/or FSB aircraft headed to Minsk without prior announcement, including two flights on August 12.

On August 14, the Russian Attorney General announced that Belarus had released 32 Russian citizens to Russia, who were on Russian territory. The announcement has been deleted from the prosecution website (but it can be read in archived form here), it seems premature. The mercenaries interviewed by Bellingcat stated that they were only released to Russia on August 16 and sent to a place near Moscow, where they were quarantined for 14 days. The mercenary said that in the past two weeks, FSB officials repeatedly interrogated 32 Russian men, trying to piece together what happened since the first mercenary answered the job information on the classified Russian website nearly a year ago.

Contributions of lead author Christo Grozev, Aric Toler, Pieter van Huis and Yordan Tsalov

*Correction: When Milayev was talking about his yellow fever immunity status, an earlier version of this story incorrectly mentioned Artem Milyayev's Covid-19 immunity status. This article has been updated to reflect this.

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