From inside the GRU. What's hidden under the "Secret" stamp

Journalists conducted an investigation into the secret activities of the GRU.

Despite a series of high-profile failures and the exposure of hundreds of agents, the GRU remains one of the most mysterious security agencies in Russia. We must not forget about the mistake of the survivor: only the failures of the intelligence service are known, and the public knows very little about its successful operations and normal routine. But the Dossier lifts the veil of secrecy. We have at our disposal the working documents of GRU officer Denis Smolyaninov, who specializes in psychological operations. He is a colonel - not the most important leader, but not exactly a small fry either. It is these colonels who make up the backbone of the middle management of military intelligence. Using his example, you can immerse yourself in the working routine of the GRU, find out what tasks they perform and how they live. Smolyaninov’s activities cover a wide range of tasks: he oversees private military companies, sends agents to Ukraine on the eve of the war, manages the information war in telegram channels, and even tries to quarrel NATO countries. All this is discussed in a new investigation.

The hunt for the “fascist Kazakh”

In early 2021, Kazakh nationalist Kuat Akhmetov and his associates began documenting on video how employees of government agencies, banks, pharmacies, hospitals, restaurants and shops refused to speak Kazakh with them. Akhmetov’s YouTube channel published videos with titles like “Astana Russian Fascism does not serve Kazakhs; it is fundamentally important for them to speak Russian” or “Almaty state worker Slava Nazi refuses to serve consumers in the state language of the Republic of Kazakhstan.” This story was eagerly picked up by second-rate Russian propagandists: the telegram channel “Ruthless PR Man” complained about “fascist Kazakhs”, the publication “Readovka” demanded a reaction from the State Duma, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs banned Akhmetov from entering Russia for 50 years. In Kazakhstan itself, a criminal case was opened against the nationalist, and he fled to Ukraine.

The scandal soon faded away, but the GRU did not forget about it. In February 2022, on the eve of the start of a full-scale war, the intelligence service sent an agent to Ukraine to search for Akhmetov. He compiled a detailed report on the results of the trip, which went on the table of GRU Colonel Denis Smolyaninov. Smolyaninov was born in 1976 in Chelyabinsk and graduated from the Chelyabinsk Higher Military Aviation School of Navigators and served in Smolensk. In the mid-2000s, he moved to St. Petersburg and began working at the 172nd GRU command and intelligence center (military unit 64501). Intelligence information flows into such centers for further processing and analysis. The 172nd RRC also had units in Petrozavodsk and Murmansk.

The photo of Smolyaninov available to the editors shows three stars on his shoulder straps, which corresponds to the rank of colonel. To ensure that there was no doubt about his departmental affiliation, Smolyaninov wore a badge with the GRU emblem for the photograph.

They learned about this military unit thanks to the fact that Smolyaninov ordered deliveries to the address of the military unit of the KRC - Mira Street, building 20A. Twelve minutes from there, on Kronvekrskaya Street, he purchased an apartment with an area of ​​119 square meters. m. Now the cost of apartments of similar size in this part of the Petrograd side starts from 20 million rubles. In addition, a residence permit gives a top secret intelligence officer. In recent years, journalists have managed to expose hundreds of military intelligence officers who were registered at the GRU headquarters on Khoroshevskoye Shosse. It could be expected that the Ministry of Defense would learn from its mistakes and change its methods of conspiracy. In the case of Smolyaninov, the protocol did change, but not for the better. Until 2022, he was registered in his apartment in St. Petersburg, but a month before the start of the war he “moved” to Moscow, to Znamenka Street, 19. This is the main building of the Ministry of Defense.

As follows from the document drawn up for Smolyaninov, they planned to “catch” the Kazakh nationalist Kuat Akhmetov, probably to take him to Russia. In the hunt for the unwanted Kazakh, the GRU agent should have been helped by his connections in the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies. But something went wrong. The Russian spy managed to obtain Akhmetov's contact information, request tracking of his mobile phone and find out where he lives. But immediately after this, the nationalist suddenly left for Turkey.

At the same time, the hunt began for the agent himself - at the hotel reception he heard that his data had been requested by the intelligence services, the trip report says. He had to leave Ukraine in a hurry and pay a bribe to the border guard to go to Transnistria. The Russian invasion began four days after his escape.

Kuat Akhmetov

Nationalist image

The search for a little-known activist from Kazakhstan on the eve of a full-scale war is a strange task for military intelligence. But that’s not all this GRU agent did in Ukraine. His other tasks were recruiting possible collaborators and making inquiries about Russian nationalists supporting Ukraine. The agent was helped in this by his own past.

The hunter of the Kazakh nationalist came to Ukraine at the invitation of Viktor Aleksandrovich Vasiliev, born in 1985. A person with such data left almost no traces in the databases - only his passport number and two enforcement proceedings for tax evasion can be found. The reason is simple: Viktor Aleksandrovich became “Vasiliev” only in 2018, and before that he bore the last name Lukovenko, as follows from the Rospassport extract.

Viktor Lukovenko is a former graduate student at the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University and a well-known character in the neo-Nazi community. At the end of the 2000s, he was an activist of the Russian Verdict. This human rights organization was involved in helping right-wing radicals who were tried for murder, assault, hooliganism and extremism. “Russian Verdict” was closely associated with the movement and the magazine “Russian Image”, the head of which Ilya Goryachev subsequently received a life sentence for organizing murders and creating the neo-Nazi gang “BORN”. Lukovenko was listed as the director of Obraz-M LLC, created in 2010, which was engaged in the trade of magazines.

The Moscow State University graduate student is not far from his comrades: in 2011, he was sentenced to 8 years in a maximum security colony for the murder of a 58-year-old native of Sri Lanka on the day of the “Russian March.” Five years later, Lukovenko was released on parole. In an interview with “Takim Dela”, he said that he did not give up his beliefs, but he did not want to “return to the old ways” - he was more happy with normal everyday life.

Viktor Lukovenko (right) in a correctional colony

Now on Vasiliev-Lukovenko’s Instagram there is a caption “traveling, building, enjoying life.” But the past still makes itself felt. From Paris, Lukovenko posts photographs of black metro passengers, complaining about the “pollution” of the city. In another post with the ambiguous hashtag “image”, he poses in a “Division 83” cap (the number 83 is used by right-wing radical groups as a code for “Heil Christ”, similar to 88 - “Heil Hitler”). Lukovenko did not tell his subscribers about his trip to Kyiv, posting photographs from Kyrgyzstan these days. As he himself admits, postponing travel publications is his unspoken rule.

But the details of his business trip are described in the report, which was placed on the table of the GRU colonel. In just over two weeks in Ukraine, Lukovenko held at least five meetings - although most of them can hardly be called successful. For example, he met with journalist Dmitry Dzhangirov , “a convinced anti-fascist, a native of Kiev and a Jew (on his father’s side),” the document emphasizes. Lukovenko agreed with Dzhangirov on information and political technology support, but a month later the Kiev resident was arrested by the SBU. There is no official information about the fate of Dzhangirov. In May 2023, one of his acquaintances reported that Dzhangirov had been free for a long time, but was seriously ill.

Another interlocutor of the GRU agent, former National Bolshevik Igor Garkavenko, a native of Kharkov, also disappeared from the radar. In the 90s, Garkavenko was an ardent supporter of the unity of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, founded the Ukrainian “national revolutionary army” and received nine years for setting fire to the offices of pro-Ukrainian organizations and the Israeli cultural center. In prison, Garkavenko joined the National Bolshevik Party. However, by the time of his release, the NBP supported the “Orange Revolution” of 2004, the essence of which contradicted the views of the newly-minted National Bolshevik. However, 10 years later, Garkavenko himself changed his position and gave lectures on armed struggle for Euromaidan activists. The report of a GRU agent indicates that in February 2022, “being a convinced Russian nationalist, Igor is nevertheless preparing for an armed struggle for his new homeland - Ukraine.”

As a legend, Lukovenko developed the “Russian-Ukrainian Radical Initiative” (RURI) project, which was supposed to unite the nationalists of the two countries. According to the report, he agreed with Garkavenko to create a YouTube studio, organize a series of lectures and form RURI. These plans were interrupted by the war: on February 24, 2022, Garkavenko stopped communicating with Lukovenko, and on March 19, he committed suicide. His suicide was publicly announced only a year later, so Lukovenko assumed that the former National Bolshevik leader could have been killed by ex-Azov commander Sergei Korotkikh - precisely because of his consent to participate in RURI.

Another acquaintance with a certain activist from Kremenchug nicknamed “Tyson” also ended in failure for the GRU. The report indicated that he was ready for direct action, controlled a group of ten fighters, and the very next day after the start of the invasion asked Lukovenko to assign him to the front line or civil defense. This can be seen in the screenshot of the correspondence with “Tyson” (available in the GRU agent’s report), but it is unclear from it whether he understood that he was communicating with a representative of the Russian special services. In any case, by August 2022, when the report was compiled, Tyson had “completely succumbed to Ukrainian nationalist propaganda” and joined the ranks of the terrorist defense, Lukovenko writes.

“Ready for full interaction. Currently, it transmits information about the mood in society and possible provocations of the Ukrainian junta. Some data were successfully used in current information work,” the report says about another Ukrainian, Yuriy Kleinos. On his social networks, he supports Ukraine and collections for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but periodically criticizes Ukrainian officials. He could have attracted the interest of Russian intelligence services several years earlier: in 2017, the SBU detained Kleinos for separatism and receiving money from Russia. According to investigators, for 100 hryvnia per hour, he hired students to participate in protests with slogans of the “Rivne People’s Republic.” Two years later, Kleinos was released from jail on bail. The Dossier Center tried to contact Kleinos on social networks, but received no response.

“At 19 years old, Liza Simonova looks like a teenager, but not like a typical bully’s companion with fanboy attributes of clothing, rude manners, chewing gum and “What the hell?” on her lips. In the corridor of the Babushkinsky court, surrounded by friends, she looks like a modest first-year student from an intelligent family: with glasses, with a folder pressed to her chest, an innocent childish smile and a quiet voice,” this is how the Lenta.ru publication described the young participant of the neo-Nazi Maxim Martsinkevich ’s gang “Restrukt”. Her nickname is Lisa Lyutaya. Like Martsinkevich, she was arrested in connection with the beating and robbery of persons of non-Slavic appearance. In 2018, Simonova was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, and the second criminal case was soon closed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Simonova came out a year later, and in 2021 she moved to Ukraine.

Liza Simonova (second from left in the front row) in the courtroom

Of Lukovenko’s entire business trip, only the meeting with Simonova could be called useful for the Russian intelligence services - so much so that he drew up a separate certificate for it. According to the document, Liza Lyutaya was a close ally of ex-Azov commander Sergei Korotkikh, nicknamed “Boatswain”, maintained many contacts with neo-Nazis in Russia and told a GRU agent about her close connection with FSB employee Yana Bezhanova, famous in narrow circles. As they wrote in Live Journal, at the beginning of the 2000s, Bezhanova trained with members of the National Bolshevik Party, and then was recruited by the Directorate for the Protection of the Constitutional System of the FSB and began to oversee right- and left-wing radical movements.

Simonova and her entourage, according to Lukovenko, received funding from the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky , and the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky was called nothing less than a clown. Before the start of a full-scale war, they were allegedly preparing a coup and were ready to cooperate with any allies in order to change the “left-liberal course” of the Ukrainian government. If there were such plans, the Russian invasion ruined them. Now, as can be seen from social networks, Liza Lyutaya is distributing humanitarian aid in Kherson and posing with Ukrainian drones.

However, it is possible that information from Simonova helped the intelligence services after the start of the war. At the end of his business trip, Lukovenko mentions that members of one of the extremist groups, for which he drew up a certificate, were detained while organizing an assassination attempt on Russian media figures. During the period covered by the report, the media reported only one such attempt on the life of propagandist Vladimir Solovyov. His failed killers were neo-Nazis, whom investigators call members of the NS/WP gang.

Another episode that may fit this description was the murder of Restrukt members in the Volgograd region, who allegedly tried to blow up a gas pipeline ordered by the SBU. Although there was no talk of assassination attempts on famous people in the news, the media called Andrei Chuenkov, nicknamed Ded88, the “curator” of the liquidated Nazis. He was listed in Lukovenko’s certificate against Simonova as her close associate.

Simonova told the Dossier Center that she did not know a person named Viktor Vasiliev or Lukovenko. After we sent her a photo of a GRU agent and a screenshot of her correspondence with him from the report, she stopped responding to messages.

What signs indicate that imprisoned neo-Nazi Viktor Lukovenko carried out GRU assignments in Ukraine? First, his report uses typical intelligence jargon: for example, receiving invitations to Ukraine is called “legendning.” Secondly, the project budget is also attached to the report, that is, this is not Lukovenko’s private initiative. He himself, as follows from the document, expected a monthly remuneration of 2,000 in an unspecified currency (probably dollars) for his work.

Finally, the fact that Vasiliev-Lukovenko worked in the interests of the GRU was confirmed by his curator Denis Smolyaninov. The Dossier correspondent called the military intelligence officer, introducing himself as an investigator of the Kostroma police. The GRU colonel would not talk to journalists, so we said that a certain Vasiliev was detained in our police department, who claims that he works for... “Well, of course, I understand which organization,” Smolyaninov readily confirmed our guesses. To be sure, we clarified that we are talking about the GRU. “This is already a joint,” the colonel sighed.

From the conversation it became clear that Smolyaninov was indeed aware of Lukovenko’s activities, but was surprised that the agent knew his name and number. Initially, the intelligence officer could not remember such a person, but the “investigative officer” reminded him of several details - the agent was in Ukraine before the invasion and met with nationalists. The colonel replied that he understood who he was talking about and promised to call back. After 5 minutes, he informed us that the real Vasiliev could not be in our police department.

“This person cannot be there now, under the name he calls. And be where you have it now. This is either some kind of setup. Or a leftist person who knows him, but calls himself by someone else’s [name]. That person is very far away now. Therefore, this is generally leftist. But if everything is serious, if there’s nothing there... In principle, I don’t care now, I’m just very interested in how this pretzel knows so much. You see, even that person shouldn’t know my phone number. That's all I'll tell you... [inaudible] there's no problem, you still have the phone. If he can be there, in your Kostroma, then I will call you back and we will resolve this issue. If not, then this is not the same person at all and, most likely, it is some kind of hat,” the colonel guessed correctly.

The Dossier Center also contacted Vasilyev-Lukovenko himself. The person who answered us said that he had not been to Ukraine, did not know Smolyaninov, and in general he was “not Victor, more precisely, Victor, but not Alexandrovich.”

Telegram war

“Go ahead, Muscovites) they will find everyone and put everyone in jail,” the Insha Kraina telegram channel comments on the news about a criminal case opened in Kyrgyzstan against a member of the so-called SVO. In appearance, this is an ordinary small pro-Ukrainian telegram channel. The authors write that any critic of Vladimir Zelensky is a “potential agent of Muscovites,” and support the shelling of Belgorod by Ukrainian troops. But the devil is, as always, in the details. One of the last original entries in the channel is a link to the “Stop Erdogan” campaign. After an earthquake in Turkey claimed the lives of 60 thousand people, a banner with a Ukrainian flag and the inscription “Erdogan, the earthquake is retribution for Russian tourists!” appeared in Paris! Alanya is next,” and 105 stenciled graffiti were painted throughout the city: “Stop Islam,” “Stop Erdogan,” and “Alanya is next.” The purpose of the event is to show the ingratitude of Ukrainians and add fuel to the fire of the conflict between Turkey and NATO countries. Reports on this action were found there, among the working documents of Denis Smolyaninov.

Photos from the “Stop Erdogan” rally

In a photograph from the rally, a man is standing near a banner with the Ukrainian flag. His face is covered with a balaclava, but on his T-shirt is the familiar inscription “RURI”. This is a reference to the very project “Russian-Ukrainian Initiative”, which Viktor Lukovenko launched under the supervision of the GRU. And the telegram channel “Insha Kraina” is part of the multidisciplinary network of the special service. It includes both pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian channels, and each has its own task. For example, through “Insha Kraina”, collections were organized supposedly for the needs of the Ukrainian army, the money from which actually went to the military from the self-proclaimed LPR and DPR. The list of channels and reports on such actions are given in the same report by Viktor Lukovenko.

Grid performance report

After the publication of the Dossier Center’s investigation into the “Stop Erdogan” campaign, “Insha Kraina” was almost abandoned - from April to December 2023, only four posts were published there. But the other channel - “iniy” - is still active. The authors promise to guide readers “on the thin ice of Ukrainian politics.” The channel gives its slogan in one of its posts: “Keep your gunpowder dry and your gun safe.” The channel's lyrical hero is a disillusioned Ukrainian emigrant with an anti-Semitic slant. The main content is criticism of the Ukrainian authorities and decadent sentiments.

“Ukrainian reality is now so configured by the Nazis and oligarchs that only a total military defeat of Kyiv will satisfy Moksha. And after him, there will be three million of us crests left. The rest will turn out to be separatists with an underground certificate since 2014 and will actively screw us. Some of us saw similar crap during the collapse of the Union. But! The crests will be bullied, and the Jews will be the ones to blame,” “iniy” paints a gloomy picture. It is difficult to trace the logic of this statement, but more than 50 thousand people have subscribed to the channel.

It was “iniy” that was most actively used for information injections after the start of the invasion, as follows from Lukovenko’s report. The channel published news about the murder of Ukrainian civilians due to the distribution of weapons to the population, criticized the territorial defense and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and also called the then presidential adviser Alexei Arestovich a “naked cunt.” All this, as planned, was supposed to undermine the morale of Ukrainians. The channel also made fun of the ex-commander of Azov, Sergei Korotkikh (“Boatswain”) - obviously, either Lukovenko himself or the GRU had special scores to settle with him. Slightly fewer falsehoods appeared in the “other country”: for example, they expected the occupation of Ukraine by Poland, hinted at the theft of humanitarian aid by the Ukrainian authorities and accused the Russian neo-Nazi Alexei Baranovsky, who had left for Ukraine, of spying for Russia (he was the coordinator of the “Russian Verdict”, with whom in the 2000s, grid organizer Lukovenko collaborated). Both channels were created on the eve of the war - one in December 2021, and the other in January 2022. As follows from the documents of a GRU colonel, channel administrators received 1,500 USD each. e. per month.

The last “Ukrainian” channel of the same network is “Tales of Dyukovsky Park”. The author positions himself as a native Odessa resident with a smuggling past. Like the other two, this channel was created shortly before the invasion. The first post was an introduction to readers, the second began with a declaration of love for Odessa, and ended with criticism of the “Kyiv ragulya” that has filled the city.

The “Odessa resident” spent January 2022 insulting Ukrainian presidents, criticizing the SBU and complaining about the “white gentlemen-amers” who rule Ukraine from overseas. It is noteworthy that even before February 24, the channel convinced subscribers that, firstly, there would be no Russian invasion, and secondly, it would happen, but through the fault of Ukraine itself.

“Erefia doesn’t want to fight, and Putin just wants to pump gas to Europe and be left alone—this pensioner doesn’t need anything else. But here it is, you can get fucked. You spent so long shouting and provoking that Putin was attacking that you stopped believing in it. But I see that they didn’t believe in the Russian Federation right away, but now... they’re thinking about it. Why not".

The first thing after the invasion began was that the channel’s author invited the Ukrainians to surrender so that not a single missile would fall on Odessa, and then called on the townspeople to expel the Ukrainian military from positions inside the city. In March, the channel announced the creation of a third front in Odessa - against the Ukrainian military, who, according to him, are hiding behind the city and will then leave, leaving ruins in its place. In April, after a month-long lull, the author promised to tell what he was doing and why “the Raguli will get fucked, but Odessa will survive,” but after that he fell silent forever. It is likely that the author was a real Odessa resident: the head of the network, Lukovenko, mentioned in his report that he spent several days in Odessa. What happened to him is unclear from the documents, but the report indicates that in February–August 2022, two “key executors” were killed. One of the “killed” was ex-National Bolshevik Garkavenko (who actually committed suicide), and the second could have been a foul-mouthed Odessa resident.

Another participant in the RURI project died six months after the report was compiled. This is political strategist and Z-patriot Igor Mangushev - he was called one of the founders of the private military company "E.N.O.T." “A little bit of a PR man, a little bit of a political strategist, a little bit of a military man. A swindler and a mercenary,” Mangushev himself described himself in his telegram channel “Notes of an Adventurer.”

The “swindler and mercenary” became famous for his performance in occupied Donetsk in August 2022, during which he held in his hands the skull of, according to him, the defender of Mariupol. Mangushev said that Russia is at war “with the idea of ​​Ukraine as an anti-Russian state” and “all carriers of this idea must be destroyed.” Six months later, an unknown person shot him in the skull, and Mangushev died in a Lugansk hospital.

Igor Mangushev with a skull

The Telegram channel “Adventurist’s Notes” was the main asset in the Z-wing of the grid under the control of Denis Smolyaninov. Through him, the GRU colonel was engaged in a real information war: Mangushev organized spam attacks on Ukrainian first aid services and official chats, and made massive false calls about mining schools and hospitals.

“Take a photo of a homeless person in the yard and distribute his photo in Ukrainian chats and groups, noting that he is a spotter. Make up and post fake stories about the cars from which the adjustments are being made. Create panic and chaos,” Mangushev advised subscribers.

Lukovenko’s report states that in the first few months of the war, “more than a hundred objects were ‘mined’ in this way and about 10,000 messages about ‘saboteurs’ and ‘spotters’ were sent.” It was through Mangushev that humanitarian aid collected in the pseudo-Ukrainian telegram channels “iniy” and “insha kraina” reached the “LDPR”.

Judging by the documents, Mangushev, as the most media person of the team, was supposed to become the political leader of the “Russian-Ukrainian Radical Initiative” - for this he was entitled to 4,000 USD. e. per month. For example, together with Vasiliev-Lukovenko, he participated in the analytical program “Circle of Opinions” on YouTube.

The program, pompously called an “expert club” with information support from the publication Reedus, is in fact an audio room for authors of pro-Kremlin telegram channels. “Circle of Opinions” even conducts on-site meetings (for example, in Kazakhstan). Despite the support of Reedus and GRU, several hundred people listen to each episode. Only two out of seventy-two videos received more than a thousand views. However, in the report for Smolyaninov, this statistics is tactfully kept silent.

The main organizer of this program is the telegram channel “Diplomacy” - another resource of Lukovenko’s Z-network. It takes a much more neutral tone and covers international policy issues, but still with a focus on Ukraine.

Finally, the last channel included in the report is “say palyanitsya” with two thousand subscribers. It was created to counter Ukrainian military propaganda and can be considered Russia's answer to NAFO. Most of the original content is low quality memes.

Lukovenko did not include his personal telegram channel “Smile & Wave” with 8 thousand subscribers in the report. In it, a neo-Nazi who served time for the murder of a black man appears as an expert on Africa. The tone of the posts is analytical - there is almost no swearing or insults, unlike other platforms. Probably, thanks to his channel, Viktor Vasilyev-Lukovenko came under Ukrainian sanctions in February 2023. The All Eyes On Wagner project called him part of Prigozhin’s in Africa and indicated that Lukovenko is familiar with employees of the “troll factory.” Many of them were included in the same package of sanctions as him. Colonel Smolyaninov, trying to remember Lukovenko, also said that he was engaged in information work “with the Wagners.”

It was in intelligence

The hunt for the Kazakh nationalist, information leaks and the mostly unsuccessful recruitment of collaborators in Ukraine—the work under the leadership of Denis Smolyaninov is not limited to this. He has been involved in the Ukrainian direction since at least 2014. Already in August 2014, lists of mercenaries to be sent to Donbass passed through him - they were looking for people with a military background, although some had problems with the law. At the same time, Smolyaninov himself flew several times to Rostov-on-Don, the closest airport to the border with Ukraine.

He was engaged in undermining the international image of Ukraine in the international arena even before the start of the full-scale invasion. For example, in the summer of 2021, a proposal was made through him to hold an online conference “Ukraine as a failed state - a threat to Europe” in Italy. Members of the now ruling Brothers of Italy party were considered as speakers - for example, Maurizio Marrone, known for his public support of the LDNR.

Maurizio Marrone with the flags of “DPR” and “Novorossiya”

The theses of the conference were supposed to be the usual Kremlin propaganda: Ukraine is ruled by the Americans, and Russia and Europe suffer from this. “Italy needs to get out of external control and pursue a “realistic” policy in foreign policy relations,” this should have been the leitmotif of the event. The unidentified author of the proposal requested $5,000 for fees for participants and another $17,500 for posting news about the conference in the media and Italian YouTube channels. He asked for a modest 3,000. However, the Dossier Center was unable to find evidence that the conference actually took place.

Among Smolyaninov’s documents one can also find a report on the hacking of defense enterprises in Ukraine, dated summer 2022. The hackers found a list of Ukrainian factories on Wikipedia, started with the letter “a” and downloaded some documents from the Arsenal instrument-making plant. They also carried out test DDoS attacks on various Ukrainian institutions - from the Ministry of Culture to the Anti-Virus Information Protection Center - and asked for approval to continue the “destructive work.” “You have been provided with information. Further actions must be agreed upon by you. Colleagues are waiting for feedback,” the burglars reported.

The report on the cyber attacks was handed over to the GRU colonel by Dmitry Yurchenko, the head of the 1,200-member Cossack Guard detachment in St. Petersburg and a graduate of the ballet academy. The Dossier correspondent called Yurchenko, introducing himself as an FSB officer who wants to talk about Smolyaninov’s “information activities” regarding Ukrainian enterprises. Yurchenko replied that the last time he and the colonel talked was on the same day, but said that he was uncomfortable discussing such topics on the phone.

Dmitry Yurchenko

Finally, Smolyaninov was also involved in activities closer to the profile of the Ministry of Defense (this department is subordinate to the GRU). It was he who, apparently, was the curator of two PMCs associated with the Ministry of Defense. The first is Longifolia, a military company of criminal authorities from the 90s, through which they established contacts with Western PMCs. This cooperation ended when the founders of Longifolia again returned to the dock for corporate raiding. But the second PMC, which was under the patronage of Smolyaninov, “took off”: the military-security company “Convoy” under the leadership of Cossack lover Konstantin Pikalov .

Psychological operations have until now remained one of the most secret activities of Russian military intelligence - the few publicly available evidence and documents only related to events 20 or even 40 years ago. Denis Smolyaninov’s documents allow us to look into the very heart of the information war - and see how, under the supervision of the GRU, low-grade telegram channels with several thousand subscribers are launched, clumsy propaganda is dispersed, and “public actions” are held where migrants are forced to portray ungrateful Ukrainians. Whether this corresponds to the mysterious image of a military intelligence officer from popular novels is for the reader to judge, but against the background of Smolyaninov, the adventures of Petrov and Boshirov are hardly out of the ordinary.