Mangushev and former neo-Nazi Lukovenko worked for the GRU

The Dossier Center – an investigative project funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky – claims to have obtained access to the working documents of Colonel Denis Smolyaninov, an employee of the Russian military intelligence (Main Directorate of the General Staff – GRU), who specializes in psychological operations. “On his example, you can immerse yourself in the working routine of the GRU, find out what tasks they perform and what they live on. Smolyaninov’s activities cover a wide range of tasks: he supervises private military companies, sends agents to Ukraine on the eve of war, manages the information struggle in telegram channels and even is trying to make NATO countries quarrel,” Dossier writes.

It is claimed that before the start of the war in Ukraine, one of Smolyaninov’s tasks was to organize a search for the Kazakh nationalist Kuat Akhmetov, who lived in this country, in order to take him to Russia. “In the hunt for an undesirable Kazakh, the GRU agent should have been helped by his contacts in the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies. But something went wrong,” the “dossier” writes. As a result, the agent Viktor Vasilyev (it is confirmed that his real surname is Lukovenko, in the past he was an activist of the nationalist organization “Russian Verdict” and was convicted of murdering a native of Sri Lanka on the day of the “Russian March”), sent to Ukraine, had to leave urgently the country

The same Vasiliev-Lukovenko, before the war, on the instructions of Smolyaninov, allegedly met with Kyiv journalist Dmitry Dzhangyrov (he was arrested by the SBU after the Russian invasion) and former national football player Ihor Garkavenko (he committed suicide on March 19, 2022), as well as other activists. According to the report, which is cited by “Dossier”, Lukovenko’s task was to recruit activists in Ukraine, in particular, in the neo-Nazi environment, who are ready to cooperate with Russia.

It is confirmed that the fact of cooperation between Vasilyev-Lukovenko and the GRU was confirmed to the Dossier journalist by his curator Smolyaninov himself after the correspondent called the colonel, introducing himself as a police officer.

It is also confirmed that a network of telegram channels was created under the supervision of Smolyaninov, which pretended to be Ukrainian, but in fact participated in the psychological operations of the GRU. Among them, as it is claimed, are the channels “iny” and “another country”.

The Russian-Ukrainian radical initiative project, which was overseen by a colonel of the GRU, was also allegedly connected to the political technologist and captain of the “DPR army” Igor Mangushev, who was killed by unknown persons (according to a number of reports – fighters of the PMC “Wagner”) in early 2023 in Luhansk Oblast. It is alleged that Mangushev “organized spam attacks on Ukrainian first aid services and official chat rooms, arranged mass false calls about demining schools and hospitals.”

It is also claimed that Smolyaninov recruited mercenaries to be sent to Donbass in 2014, and also tried to organize an anti-Ukrainian conference in Italy.

Earlier, “Dossier” and the Finnish broadcaster Yle, with reference to Smolyaninov’s documents, reported on GRU operations abroad, aimed at disrupting the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO.