the first explosion in a NATO country was carried out by the GRU group in 2011
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The unit of Russian military intelligence – the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GRU), known as military unit 29155, is involved, according to the investigations, in the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury or the explosion at the ammunition warehouse in the Czech Vrbetice, involved in the explosion in Bulgaria, which occurred back in 2011 . This is confirmed in an investigation published by The Insider. One of its authors was Hristo Grozev, who played an important role in the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the poisoning of Alexei Navalny.
The investigation also claims that many former employees of the GRU, involved in the explosions in Europe, took up positions in Russian government structures.
Radio Svoboda previously also repeatedly published investigations about Averyanov and his subordinates, and found, among other things, evidence of his connection with Chepyga (aka “Ruslan Boshirov”).
The Bulgarian prosecutor’s office previously reported that it was investigating the possible involvement of the GRU in the 2011 explosion at the EMCO warehouse in the village of Lovnidol. His results were not reported. The Insider provides details of this sabotage, claiming that the purpose of the explosion was to prevent the supply of weapons to Georgia. The head of the operation, as it is said, was General Andrey Averyanov, who rose to the rank of deputy head of the GRU and now, as it is said, supervises the African direction.
As the head of military unit 29155, Averyanov, as The Insider writes, in the late 2000s “recruited several dozen young officers of the GRU and special forces. This group, which grew over time to about 70 people, was called to be responsible for sabotage operations abroad.” In October 2011, the first such operation was allegedly carried out. Its target was the warehouse of the Bulgarian EMSO company of businessman Emelyan Gebrev (in the end, it is said, the same operatives of the GRU poisoned him with “Novichok”, he survived). The case involved the same Czech warehouse in Vrbetice, which, according to the investigation, was blown up by GRU employees three years later. Averyanov and his group members Nikolay Ezhov, Sergey Romanov, Rustam Jafarov, Alexey Kapynos and Anatoly Chepyga allegedly installed remote-controlled explosive devices in a set of ammunition intended for shipment to Bulgaria, and after their arrival at the warehouse in Lovnidol, blew them up.
“The sabotage of 2011 in Lovnidol is the first sabotage operation of the GRU unit No. 29155 on the territory of NATO. Convinced of their impunity, the terrorists continued their operations in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, which led to significant casualties among the civilian population,” writes The Insider.
As the publication notes, many of Averyanov’s former subordinates “were not abandoned” by Russian President Vladimir Putin “to the whims of fate and became representatives of his apparatus in various Russian regions.” In particular, it is alleged that four of the participants in sabotage operations in Bulgaria joined the apparatus of federal inspectors or ambassadors of the president in various Siberian regions, including the Sakhalin and Magadan regions. Rustam Dzhafarov became an assistant to the Plenipotentiary in the Far Eastern Federal District. The Insider promised to tell later about the fate of Anatoly Chepyga, whom the British authorities suspect of poisoning the Skripals, and the Czech authorities suspect of the explosion in Vrbetica. The Russian authorities did not comment on the publication.
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