An Officer And A Diplomat: The Strange Case Of The GRU Spy With A Red Notice

[Litwin]

one for sure the Hague is closer and closer

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• n its original series of investigations in 2018, Bellingcat identified three GRU officers: Maj. Gen. Denis Sergeev, Col. Anatoliy Chepiga and Col. Alexander Mishkin, M.D., linked to the March 2018 Novichok poisonings in Salisbury.
• In several follow-up reports, Bellingcat and its investigative partner The Insider disclosed the existence of a clandestine GRU team earmarked and trained for overseas disruptive operations and extraterritorial assassinations. This elite team is disguised as part of a larger GRU training unit referred to Military Unit 29155.
• In a report from 7 July 2019, we tracked the frequent travels of officers from this GRU team to Switzerland in the period 2016-2018, with an especially high concentration of concurrent trips to the area near Lake Geneva at the end of 2017 and early 2018.
• In two further investigations from 2019, we disclosed the link between this GRU unit and two poisoning attempts targeting Emilian Gebrev, a Bulgarian weapons manufacturer, his son, and his business associate in April and May 2018. We identified eight different GRU officers who had visited Bulgaria undercover in the months immediately preceding the poisoning, with three of these being in Bulgaria during each of the attempts.
• On 23 January 2020, Bulgarian prosecutors announced indictments and issued Interpol wanted alerts against three of the GRU officers previously identified by Bellingcat. Authorities also released surveillance footage showing one of them wearing a disguise and approaching several cars in an underground garage where the poison victims’ cars had been parked.
  
  An Officer And A Diplomat: The Strange Case Of The GRU Spy With A Red Notice - bellingcat

 

[Litwin]

What We Know About Gordienko
Egor Gordienko was born in 1979 in Bolgrad, a small town near Odessa, where his father, a military unit commander, had been stationed as part of the 98th Airborne Assault Division. His family hails from Tyumen, a city in Western Siberia. At some point in the early 80’s, his father was relocated to Moscow and his family moved with him.

We have not been able to find out where Egor Gordienko’s received his early education, but based on the credentials of other members of the clandestine GRU unit, it is not unlikely that after receiving his schooling he graduated from the GRU Academy in Moscow. His first international trip was in January 2007, was conducted under his real name, Gordienko, and involved a 12-day stay in Cairo. While domestic travel records indicate that at this time he was already working for the GRU, his undercover identity had not yet been created. Based on the oldest undercover identity document we have discovered so far, the clandestine undercover team within Unit 29155 was created in its current form in 2009.

Gordienko’s first trip under his cover identity , as “Georgy Gorshkov”, a made-up persona two years older than his real age, was in September 2010 when he traveled to Barcelona, Spain. During the remainder of 2010, he managed to take trips in quick succession to Finland, Ukraine, and Turkey. In 2011 and 2012, he only traveled to Ukraine and Turkey.

In 2013, “Gorshkov” also visited Ukraine and Turkey, but also made two trips to Tajikistan, both times with other members of the clandestine team, which included “Sergey Fedotov”, i.e. the cover name for Denis Sergeev.

In February 2014, Gordienko traveled to Prague, and during July, October and November he made three long trips to Switzerland, France, and Italy, staying in the region for 45 days in the last quarter of that year.

During early 2014, Gordienko also made trips to Krasnodar and Crimea. Based on the pattern of his trips to Ukraine on the eve of the annexation of Crimea, and the known involvement of the clandestine GRU team in the annexation, we assume he also took part in that operation. Notably, in July 2014, Gordienko’s family was granted an upscale apartment in the same Moscow building where Alexander Mishkin and Vladimir Moiseev also received apartments at the same time. Based on the timing and lack of evidence of payment for these apartments, we assume that they were gifted to (certain) members of the clandestine team as an incentive in addition to a governmental award. As Mishkin and Chepiga received their apartments as part of the bestowal of the “Hero of Russia” award over their role in the Crimea annexation, it is logical to assume the same holds true for Egor Gordienko.

Bulgarian Operation
On 11 February 2015, “Gorshkov” flew from Moscow to Sofia. Nine days later, he returned to Moscow, taking a flight from neighboring Greece. Bulgarian investigators assume that this was a reconnaissance trip in preparation for the assassination attempt on Emilian Gebrev. As we wrote previously, a number of other members of the same GRU team made “staggered” trips to Bulgaria in the first months of 2015, also likely as part of the operation’s preparatory phase.

On 24 April 2015, “Gorshkov” flew back from Moscow to Bulgaria, this time landing in the seaside resort of Burgas. Two other members of the team- “Sergey Fedotov” (Denis Sergeev) and “Sergey Pavlov” (Sergey Lyutenko) – flew in on or around the same day. The three rented a car and moved on to the capital Sofia, where, according to Bulgarian prosecutors, they stayed at the Hill Hotel, and expressly requested rooms with a view to the entrance of an underground garage to the side of the hotel. This was the garage used by Emilian Gebrev’s company, Emco.

At 13:57 on 28 April, one of the three — who is thought to be the senior-most team member, Denis Sergeev — can be seen in a wide-brim hat, shades, and gloves moving among cars in Emco’s underground garage and presumably spraying the targets’ car door-handles with a yet unidentified organophosphate poison.