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Bulgarian journalist, media director, chief investigator of the international investigative organization Bellingcat Hristo Grozev In an interview with the editor-in-chief of the publication “GORDON”, Ales Batsman said that Bellingcat was able to confirm that the Ukrainian special services were actually preparing a special operation to capture mercenaries from the Russian private military company “Wagner”, but was thwarted at the last stage.
Investigators discovered that the operation was carried out by the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense, together with employees of the Ukrainian Security Service.
“We saw how the Ukrainian military intelligence with the help of the SBU – a good part of the military intelligence together with a good part of the SBU! – He devised a plan to cheat, play the GRU, the FSB and the Wagneristas. They made a great joke and were able to convince both the FSB and the GRU that it was about a private military company that is hiring people, and that the Wagnerians would make a long trip to Venezuela via Minsk and Istanbul. All this was done by Ukrainian intelligence! They brought these people to Minsk, these people were ready to fly to Istanbul that very day, and the plane would land in Kiev “, – said Grozev.
According to him, it took a long time for investigators to delve into how the operation was planned.
“His script was born in real time. It all started with a very small idea:” Let’s catch four Wagnerians. Let’s call them in for training, for example in Poland, supposedly for future special operations. And during training [переправим] them on the other side of the border ”. Then someone said, “Come on, eight.” Another added: “Hey, I have a friend who knows someone who was previously responsible for recruiting Wagnerians. He found himself in a criminal situation of a corrupt nature. Maybe we can get him involved in this case in Russia? “Then someone said:” And I know a company like Wagner, which was left unused, has a history on paper … “And this scenario was written for months, and arose from a minimal project like” Catch [фигуранта дела о крушении MH17 Владимира] Tsemakh and two or three other Wagnerists “to the Hollywood script, spelled every second,” – said the researcher.
The script was written by a group of authors. – the best special agents and leadership of the GUR, as well as the best people of the SBU
According to Bellingcat, in general, the preparation of the special operation was attended by five or six employees of the GUR and the SBU.
“This script was written by a group of authors. These are the coolest special agents and leadership of the GUR, as well as some good people from SBU. Overall, this script was written by five or six people from their special services during year”. – said Grozev.
In preparing this special operation, according to Bellingcat, Ukraine “most likely” cooperated with other countries.
“They will never say this, no one will confess to us either, because this is a question of future relations between the countries. But if you have to guess, then Belarus definitely did not help. Russia helped, it just did not understand that it was helping. Perhaps Israel and the States. United helped.. With Turkey, I think, there was an agreement not to interfere “, – said the journalist.
In his opinion, the special services of Ukraine prepared everything very professionally.
“All of this was brilliantly thought out! And suddenly your government says it never happened, that this is an invention of the Russian special services. This is a precedent for me. I have never seen a situation where the state abandoned such a project well, he made a laughingstock, clowns, and said, “We didn’t do this.” This is very strange to me. When we got into this project, we wanted to understand for ourselves: was there such a thing? Maybe this is really a invention of the Russian intelligence service? It turned out that it was not only, but also that it failed It failed in the final phase, but not quite yet, because a large database has accumulated, there are confessions of these idiots [из ЧВК “Вагнер”]… In the same way as [вероятный сотрудник ФСБ РФ Константин] Kudryavtsev admitted [российскому оппозиционеру Алексею] Navalny [в причастности к его отравлению]the Wagnerites admitted [в преступлениях] their special services, they played recruiters, “said Grozev.
How did you manage to find out? Bellingcat, the special operation to stop the Wagnerians was thwarted in the final stage due to a political decision.
“The last phase, which was to end with the takeoff of the plane [из Минска]it didn’t happen. Why? Because there was a political decision at the level of the presidential institution that it should be postponed for several days, because there was some kind of negotiation process [с Россией]… This decision to postpone a few days, according to our analysis, turned out to be the key to the failure of the last phase. And the last phase would be the arrest of these people, of which seven or eight would immediately become very important witnesses. in the hague by [делу о сбитом над Донбассом в 2014 году] Boeing and the rest were involved in atrocities, murders, that is, real crimes, in 2014 [на востоке Украины]… They would be very important defendants who can be shown in The Hague in another case, namely “Ukraine against Russia” on the financing of terrorism and aggression “. – said the journalist.
The simplest explanation: it was the scare. The decision was made not to generate a confrontation with Russia
According to investigators, all the Wagnerites were very well chosen and a court could have established their guilt without issue.
“These people were very well chosen. They are not random Wagnerites. These Wagnerites committed crimes on the territory of Ukraine and possibly in other countries (for example in Syria). They were all chosen according to one criterion: the court? Will you say “yes” to the prosecution? against them, or is there a risk that the court will release them. This first list included only those who were involved in serious crimes. There were other lists (to create a legend, it was necessary to hire to many more than 40 people, – hired 150), but only included those most important to the court in Ukraine in the first group. If carried to the end, it would be an unprecedented success for any special service for the past 50 years. The last time this was done by the Israeli “Mossad”, apparently in Ethiopia (probably several covert military rescue operations on the evacuation of Jews from Ethiopiathat Israel went through in the 1980s and early 1990s. – “GORDON”) “, Grozev said.
At the same time, according to him, Bellingcat could not establish the exact reason why the special operation failed.
“Was there a delay due to the fact that someone decided to ‘merge’ this information with Russia or Belarus, or was it a very bad management decision (betting on the negotiation process instead of catching these people and having a much greater influence for the new negotiation process) – for me it is not so important. Because it was a very, very bad decision by the state of Ukraine. Why did the operation fail? I cannot find an answer to this question. If there was a betrayal, then It was a very secret call or even a clue I think the simplest explanation is that it was a scare, it was a decision not to generate a confrontation with Russia and because of this slowdown in the final phase, allow the operation to fail, but without active intervention. Is it a betrayal or just a political fear? I don’t know. But even if it’s political cowardice, it’s very bad. ” – the journalist is convinced.
Grozev said that Bellingcat will publish an investigation into the halt to the special operation to capture Wagner’s PMC mercenaries in early 2021, and will release a documentary about this by the end of the year (he plans to nominate him for an Oscar). In the future, the group plans to shoot a feature film.
VIDEO
Video: Alesya Batsman / YouTube
July 29 Belarusian authorities reported the arrest of 33 foreigners who were in a private military company. The Belarusian Security Council stated that a criminal case was opened against the detainees under the article on the preparation of terrorist acts, later it was reported that they were suspected of preparing mass riots.
In an interview with GORDON newspaper founder Dmitry Gordon, which aired on August 6, Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in charge of Belarus since 1994, said that he would hand over the detained militants to Ukraine if Kiev proves its involvement in the crimes in Donbass. Lukashenka ordered to invite the attorneys general of Russia and Ukraine to the country to investigate the situation with the detained militants. On August 9, he said that since prosecutors did not come to Minsk, it means they “don’t care about these guys.”
On August 12, the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine approached the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Belarus with requests for the extradition of 28 Wagnerites (nine of them were citizens of Ukraine) who actively participated in the hostilities in the Donetsk regions. and Lugansk as part of the terrorist organizations “LPR” and “DPR” …
On August 14 it emerged that the Belarusian authorities had extradited the arrested Wagnerites to Russia. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy considered this to be a hostile move by Belarus. In his opinion, the consequences of the release of the mercenaries “will be tragic”.
The editor-in-chief of “Censor.NET”, Yuri Butusov, said on August 18 that the trip of the PMC Wagner fighters to Belarus was part of a special operation of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense and the Defense Service. Ukraine Security: A plane with mercenaries was supposed to land in Ukraine and then stop them. According to Butusov, the special operation failed due to the decision of the head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak and Zelensky, to postpone the departure of the militants from Minsk from July 25 to 30, as well as the leak of information from Ukraine.
Oleksandr Turchynov, former secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said that information about a special operation to arrest the Wagnerites reached the special services of Russia and Belarus after a meeting with Zelensky, which they attended, in addition to the heads of special services of Ukraine, the heads of the Office of the President. He, like the former Attorney General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko, noted that the special operation has been carried out since 2019. The former head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Bogdan, said that the operation to capture Wagner’s PMC mercenaries was foiled by a man “from the closest circle” of Zelensky.
The SBU called this data a “fantastic scenario.” The head of the Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov, said that the PMC Wagner fighters were transferred to Minsk by Russian special services and that this was not a special operation of the SBU. Zelensky said there was no “drain” on the special operation to stop the Wagnerites. Yermak called the account of the SBU’s involvement in the Wagnerites’ appearance in Minsk a disinformation campaign.
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