Report from Maj. Vladimir Moiseev to Andrey Averyanov, one of the three spies who manufactured remote-controlled explosive triggering units.
Product Description
The product is designed for the mining of mobile and stationary objects.
Tactical and Technical Characteristics
Type …………………………………….. Radio-controlled
Range, m ……………………………….. 300-700
Mass, kg:
Control device ………………………… 1
Executive device ………………………. 0.15
Explosive device mass …………………. 2.8
Dimensions, mm:
Executive device ………………………. 70x70x40
Executive device with charge …………… 400x110x75
Power supply ……………………………. 1.5V – 1 pc., 9V – 1 pc., 12V – 1 pc.
Remote arming mechanism ………………… Mechanical, clockwork
Time of remote arming ……………………. From 5 to 55 minutes
Principle of Operation
In the transport position, the contacts of the initiator circuit are open with the safety switch. The time of remote arming is ensured by the operation of the mechanical timer; the contacts of the initiator circuit are fixed on the rotating parts of the timer.
When the device is installed, turning the handle of the timer sets the required time for remote arming; the safety switch is set to the combat position corresponding to the red triangle. When the power source of the control device is connected, the auto alarm automatically switches to the working position.
After the time of remote arming elapses, the contacts of the initiator circuit close, and the device enters the standby mode for the detonation command.
Upon receiving the command from the control device, the transistor switch of the executive device connects the power source to the initiator circuit, and the device explodes.
Conclusion: The product is ready for use.
Major V. Moiseev
Bombs in Czechia, Blasts in Bulgaria
Six months after the Krasnodar retreat, in October 2011, thousands of artillery rounds for Soviet-era weapons were being readied for shipment to Bulgaria from a Czech ammunition storage facility in the tiny village of Vrbětice, home to only a few hundred people, in the Zlín region of eastern Czechia. The facility was owned by a subsidiary of the Czech Ministry of Defense but it had been rented out on a long-term basis by the Czech arms trading company IMEX, which was storing Soviet-era munitions scrapped by the Slovak Army a few years earlier on behalf of clients such as Bulgaria’s EMCO. As former Warsaw Pact nations, Czechia, Bulgaria and Slovakia still had ample supplies of Soviet-era weaponry and ammunition, a good deal of which all three countries have since donated to Ukraine for its defensive war against Russia.
Three years earlier, however, Moscow had invaded another post-Soviet state, Georgia, in a five-day summer war fought over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which were slowly turning into vassal states of Russia. Russia technically won the war and hostilities came to an end in a negotiated ceasefire in August 2008, which accorded Russia de facto control over South Ossetia.
Yet the Kremlin knew that despite its destruction of much of Georgia’s weapons arsenal, the Georgians were far from resigned to the new status quo and their army was quickly rearming. Just a year after the ceasefire, the Russian Army Chief of Staff Nikolay Makarov made the alarmist claim that “Georgia’s military potential is now higher than last August.” Makarov went on to say that the United States was supplying Georgia with weapons and ammunition “through somebody else’s hands.”
Russia had specific ideas of who these hands belonged to. Putin directly accused the Ukrainian government, then headed by reformist President Viktor Yushenko, of supplying weapons to Georgia. The GRU, however, was aware of another supplier in Eastern Europe: Bulgaria.
According to former Georgian government officials, arms contracts for Tbilisi contracted severely after the war with Russia. “Remember, also, this was the time of the Obama ‘reset’ with Putin,” Giorgi Kandelaki, who served as MP in Georgia’s parliament from to 2020, said, referring to a U.S. effort to thaw relations with the Kremlin at the onset of a new presidential administration. “So Georgia sought sellers wherever we could find them.”
“Bulgaria was one of the first countries to give us export licenses and sell us weapons,” a former Georgian official familiar with the Georgian Ministry of Defense’s procurement history, told The Insider, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “What kind of weapons and ammunition we were importing, unfortunately, we can’t say because it’s top secret by Georgian law.”
Yet the Bulgarian arms sales, which are a matter of public record in Georgia, continued in the face of express warnings by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s placeholder president, who threatened to ground Bulgaria’s fleet of MiG fighter jets in the event Sofia “resumes arms sales to Georgia.”
Among the munitions Tbilisi needed badly were 152-millimeter artillery shells, the Soviet standard, which had been expended in the five-day war. A major reseller of this type of ammunition in Europe was EMCO, a company owned by Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev. In October 2011, EMCO contracted with the Czech weapons company IMEX to package several thousand rounds of the shells for shipment to Bulgaria.
A shipping report from EMCO itemizing the ammunition received from IMEX shows that in a one-month period – from October 4 and November 4, 2011 – more than 6,000 artillery rounds, of which 3,120 were the 152-millimeter variant, were shipped from Czechia to Bulgaria. These rounds, Bulgarian prosecutors alleged in 2021, had been earmarked for subsequent transfer to Georgia. (Emilian Gebrev, EMCO’s owner, told The Insider he had not committed the shipment specifically for export to Georgia but concedes that the GRU would have likely suspected the shipment would end up there.)
“The key thing to know about this variant is that the ammunition and the propellant are kept together in one one package, which makes each container much more volatile,” an active-duty U.S. Army artilleryist told The Insider. “152 millimeter shells are harder to transport logistically, but they’re also more idiot-proof since you don’t have to handle ammunition and propellant separately.” But the same quality that makes them more convenient on the battlefield also makes them more combustible in storage – a fact Unit 29155 was clearly eager to exploit.
As the Czech ammunition was packed and readied for shipment in several batches, Averyanov’s team began arriving from Moscow to airports near Vrbětice. By all accounts, it was there that they’d plant their explosives, ready for remote detonation.
Unit 29155 members always arrive at the locations of their intended sabotage operations in staggered groups. The first arrived at Bratislava Airport in Slovakia, a mere 90-minute drive from the IMEX storage facility, on October 10. This group included “Nikolay Kononikhin,” who was previously identified by Bellingcat and The Insider as GRU officer Lt. Col. Nikolay Ezhov; and “Sergei Ryzhikov,” whose real identity, The Insider can now reveal, is that of GRU officer Lt. Col. Sergey Romanov. Both men remained in Slovakia until October 20, giving them ten days for unrestricted vehicle travel into and out of Czechia, which, like Slovakia, are both within the Schengen zone of free and unrestricted travel for up to 90 days, meaning a Russian who obtains visa entry to one requires no customs checks in any other.
On October 12, two days after Ezhov and Romanov, their boss arrived in Europe too. Averyanov landed at Vienna International Airport using his “Overyanov” cover name. Metadata from his burner phone shows that he crossed into Czechia the next day, likely reconvening with his advance team at or near Vrbětice, a little over a two-hour drive from the Austrian capital. Travel records show Averyanov flew back to Moscow on October 18, again via Vienna.
The next operative to touch down was Col. Alexey Kapinos, who landed in Bratislava on October 21, using his diplomatic passport and his real name. Kapinos had previously served as Russia’s deputy military attaché in Ukraine from 2011 to 2014. Historical travel data and telephone metadata reveal he was also an original member of Unit 29155 seconded to the Russian Embassy in Kyiv under diplomatic cover two years before his unit attacked Bulgaria. Kapinos left back for Moscow on October 28.
Last to arrive were “Rustam Dzhamalov,” a senior GRU officer named Col. Rustam Dzhafarov, and “Ruslan Boshirov,” whose real name the world would come to know as Col. Anatoly Chepiga following his role in the poison assassination attempt of Sergei Skripal, a GRU officer turned British agent, along with Skripal’s daughter Yulia, in Salisbury, England in 2018. Dzhafarov and Chepiga reached Bratislava on October 22 and left on October 25, which happens to be the day the largest EMCO consignment of 152-millimeter shells were shipped from Czechia to Bulgaria by cargo truck.
Source link : https://theins.ru/en/politics/266039
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Publish date : 2023-10-20 03:00:00
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