Оригинал
Сергей Канев: В ГРУ нашли виновного в провалах: им оказался близкий друг Чепиги-Боширова — полковник Константин Бахтин
В минувшую субботу в Минобороны РФ прошло секретное совещание по следам громких провалов российской военной разведки в США, Англии, Голландии и Черногории. Среди прочих нелестных оценок звучали «дремучая некомпетентность», «беспредельное разгильдяйство», «дебилы» и «еще бы буденовки надели». Судя по всему, скоро в Главном управлении Генштаба РФ (ранее ГРУ) предстоит большая зачистка, и некоторых генералов попросят на выход.
В числе прочих виновных в неудачах разведки назвали работающего под «крышей» посольства РФ в Нидерландах полковника ГРУ Константина Бахтина, который оказался близким другом «отравителя» Скрипалей Анатолия Чепиги («Руслан Боширов»).
По словам источника «Центра Досье», в штаб-квартире ГРУ (в/ч 45 807, на сленге разведчиков — «Аквариум») детально проанализировали действия всех групп, засланных проводить диверсии и спецмероприятия за рубежом. Итог оказался неутешительным: сами разведчики и их непосредственные командиры не соблюдали элементарных основ нелегальной и агентурной работы за рубежом, общались между собой по телефонным номерам, зарегистрированным в московском регионе, а сами разговоры с указанием подробностей велись почти открытым текстом.
Особый разнос получили кибер-диверсанты, пытавшиеся взломать компьютерную сеть Организации по запрещению химического оружия (ОЗХО) в Гааге.
Как известно, в апреле этого года возле штаб-квартиры ОЗХО полиция Нидерландов задержалас поличным четверых россиян, имевших при себе дипломатические паспорта на имя Олега Сотникова, Алексея Моренца, Евгения Серебрякова и Алексея Минина. При задержании Моренец пытался разбить свой телефон, а при досмотре у него была обнаружена квитанция на поездку на такси в аэропорт Шереметьево от Несвижского переулка, где расположен комплекс зданий Минобороны РФ, в том числе в/ч № 26 165, в которой он официально служит. Моренец сохранил квитанцию для отчета в бухгалтерии воинской части.

По данным «Центра Досье», руководил группой хакеров в погонах кадровый офицер ГРУ Алексей Минин, окончивший 1-й факультет Военно-Дипломатической академии (ВДА), расположенной в Москве на ул. Народного ополчения дом 50 (в/ч 22 177, на языке грушников — «Консерватория»). Выпускники 1-го факультета ВДА (стратегическая агентурная разведка, на сленге грушников «пиджаки») в дальнейшем работают под «крышами» российских посольств, Аэрофлота и внешнеэкономических организаций. Еще один задержанный Евгений Серебряков служил в в/ч 26 165, которая расположена по адресу Комсомольский проспект дом 20, а Олег Сотников поступил в военную разведку после учебы в МАДИ.
По словам все того же источника в военном ведомстве, диверсанты изначально были обречены на провал: «Голландская контрразведка пасла их с самого начала. Скорее всего, они прослушивали телефон второго секретаря нашего посольства Кости Бахтина, который постоянно созванивался с «Хорошевкой» (в/ч 45 807) и обсуждал детали операции. Он, кстати, отвечал и за техническую сторону и передал этим придуркам нужную аппаратуру. В ближайшее время его отзовут в Москву и, возможно, снимут не только погоны».
Как удалось выяснить, полковник Константин Бахтин родился в 1978 году в Башкирии и проходил службу в в/ч 54 902 в Хабаровском крае, больше известной как военный аэродром Гаровка-2. В дальнейшем воинскую часть расформировали, а Бахтина, после собеседования, откомандировали в ВДА, и он поступил слушателем на 1-й факультет (стратегическая агентурная разведка).
Во время учебы в ВДА, Бахтина с семьей поселили в общежитии Российского государственного гуманитарного университета по адресу Кировоградская улица, 25, корп. 1. Проживал «студент» Бахтин в квартире № 10, а в квартире № 28 жилтеперь уже знаменитый на весь мир один из «отравителей» Скрипалей Анатолий Чепига, он же Руслан Боширов. Чепиги и Бахтины дружили семьями и вместе отмечали праздники. Потом Бахтина отправили в посольство РФ в Нидерландах, и в качестве 2-го секретаря он усиленно искал агентурные подходы к международной следственной группе, расследующей обстоятельства гибели в 2014 году в небе над Донецкой областью малайзийского Боинга (по версии следствия, пассажирский лайнер был сбит российским комплексом «Бук», погибли 298 человек). А в последнее время полковник Бахтин координировал подготовку спецопераций по кибератакам на штаб-квартиру ОЗХО в Гааге.
По данным Судебного участка № 164 Тушинского района Москвы, в 2016 году Бахтину присудили штраф 30 тыс. рублей, но выяснить, где и как «накосячил» полковник, нам не удалось.
Тем временем, в Минобороны ходят усиленные слухи, что в середине сентября на ковер к Путину вызывали начальника Главного управления генштаба ВС РФ (ранее ГРУ) генерал-полковника Игоря Коробова, и по возвращении домой ему стало плохо. Генерал Коробов проживает с супругой в элитном жилом комплексе «Ближняя дача» на Староволынской улице, в котором получили квартиры высокопоставленные чиновники, генералы ФСБ, ФСО, МВД и Следственного комитета. «Многоуровневая система безопасности, созданная в нашем комплексе соответствует уровню VIP, обеспечивает надежную охрану жителей нашего дома и членов их семей. Собственная инфраструктура предназначенная только для жителей комплекса, избавит вас от ненужных контактов», — указано на сайте ЖК «Ближняя дача».
Не исключено, что до конца года Коробова снимут с должности, а на его место поставят родившегося в Ленинграде генерала Сергея Гизунова. Питерца Гизунова называют глазами и ушами Путина в военной разведке. Биография путинского «смотрящего» строго засекречена, но имеется одна любопытная подробность: в сентябре 1999 года оперативники из ОВД «Черемушки» за хранение оружия задержали уроженца Украины Анатолия Девятку и провели у него обыск. Среди вещей обнаружилась визитка тогда еще подполковника Гизунова.
Оригинал

He is also believed to have purchased, in 2006, one of the most prestigious homes in Washington DC.
The 23,000-square-foot, seven-bedroom home — featuring Italian marble floors and a chandelier that had once hung in the Paris Opera House — was sold for $15 million.
The house in New York is listed as the address for the children and ex-wife Roman Abramovich, Mr Deripaska’s friend and former business partner. According to Treasury officials, when the government freezes assets, that means anyone who does business with a sanctioned person, and sanctioned companies, could be subject to sanctions themselves.

Four years ago, on the afternoon of 23 March, Russian troops with armour smashed through the walls of a Ukrainian airbase, Belbek, after a tense and bitter siege. It was the first serious military action between the two countries in Crimea not long before the territory would be annexed by the Kremlin.

I was among a group of journalists at the base reporting on the attack in which, according to recent reports, Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, one of the men accused of carrying out the novichok poisoning in Salisbury, played a key role. The operation there was one of main reasons, it is claimed, the GRU officer had received the highly prestigious “hero of Russia” award at the direct orders of Vladimir Putin.

Another officer in the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service, Colonel Alexander Popov, had also received the same award for services in Crimea. Both of them were members of Russia’s Spetsnaz special forces at the time. Popov, it should be stressed, was not the second man allegedly involved in the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, who travelled to Britain on a passport under the name of Alexander Petrov.

The role of Chepiga – who had used a passport in the name of Ruslan Boshirov for the Salisbury plot – in Crimea has been revealed by Novaya Gazeta in Moscow. The campaigning opposition newspaper, which has had a string of scoops over the years, had discovered that he and Popov had also been involved in two other operations in Crimea – the disarmament of a Ukrainian marine infantry brigade in Feodosia and the capture of the Council of Ministers building in Simferopol.

We, the journalists, covered the events in Feodosia and Simferopol. But the dramatic and memorable episode in Belbek served to encapsulate what was unfolding in Crimea during those extraordinary weeks following the street protests in Kiev – protests that had driven out the pro-Moscow government of Viktor Yanukovych, and made the future of Ukraine seem to hang in balance.

The conflict in Crimea was the start of the bitter battles that were to come in the east of Ukraine. The Russian presence in the peninsula was overt (unlike the Donbass) with President Putin arriving for the celebrations after a referendum declared illegal by Kiev and the West. But it was also one of the first examples of a secret, hybrid war carried out by the GRU for Moscow in which propaganda and cyberattacks were extensively used alongside open military operations.

The assault by the Russian forces on Belbek, with the Spetsnaz among them in black combat fatigues and Chepiga and Popov in their ranks if reports are correct, came with bursts of automatic fire and explosions from stun grenades. It was the culmination of a standoff, highly charged and emotional, that had become a cause célèbre, with Ukrainian forces barricaded behind the gates of the base while their families kept vigil outside.

Three weeks previously, my Crimean translator and I had gone to the airfield at Belbek, near Sevastopol, after hearing that it had been surrounded by Russian forces. The base was of strategic significance because it could be used to monitor the air corridor into Sevastopol, where the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet was based, as well having a complement of Mig-29 Fulcrum fighters, Mi-24 and Czech-made L-39 helicopter-gunships stationed there.

The Ukrainian regiment based there were not hardened soldiers but a mixture of pilots and technical support for the aircraft. They were, however, brave, dedicated and led by a redoubtable commanding officer, Colonel Yuliy Mamchur. An ultimatum came on the day we arrived, delivered by a Russian officer, who identified himself as Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Mirnov of the Black Sea Fleet. He warned that the Ukrainians had 24 hours to surrender or face a full-scale attack.

Mamchur and his men and women had no intention of leaving. We stayed with them at the base to see what happened, but no attack materialised. But the respite did not last long: a few days later a Russian unit arrived during the night and took over a part of the base.

Mamchur, along with a small group of his soldiers and a few journalists, marched up the hill to meet them in the morning flying the Ukrainian and regimental flag and singing the national anthem.

The path was soon blocked by Russian soldiers in balaclavas, who shouted orders to turn back and then fired shots over our heads. But no one halted and there were increasingly angry threats. At one point, as several Russians took aim with their assault rifles, an officer stepped forward, pushing aside one of the raised rifles, and beckoned Mamchur forward to talk.

But then the colonel was kept waiting. The only person the Russians offered to carry out the negotiations was Yuri Balduk, a man who claimed to be a leader of the separatist “self-defence volunteers”, who turned up unshaven, in dirty jeans and trainers and unsure, at first, about what he was meant to do.

It appeared to be an obvious attempt to snub and belittle. Balduk demanded that Mamchur hand over the base to him – the colonel refused. There followed an example of how dysfunctional the Ukrainian government back in Kiev was at the time. The colonel called the Ministry of Defence. It was a short conversation. “They asked me to use my own initiative, that has been the case ever since the day the Russians had arrived wanting to take over the base. We have no guidance, we can expect no help, we are really on our own here,” he explained, spreading his hands.

Members of the emergency services in hazard suits fix the tent over the bench where Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury in March 2018.
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The retired Russian colonel and former double agent for MI6 was in a critical condition in hospital for more than two months after being exposed to novichok in Salisbury. He was given refuge in the UK after being jailed in Moscow for treason. Mr Skripal came to Britain as part of a high-profile “spy swap” in 2010 in which four men were exchanged for ten Russian “sleeper agents” in the US. In this image he is speaking to his lawyer from behind bars in Moscow in 2006.
AP

Yulia Skripal was struck down by a novichok poison alongside her father Sergei.
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A police officer stands guard outside a branch of the Italian chain restaurant Zizzi where the pair dined at before falling ill. It was boarded off whilst investigators worked on the building and later found traces of the chemical weapon within it.
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Large areas of central Salisbury were cordoned off by police following the discovery of the Skripals. Traces of nerve agent were also found in The Mill pub.
PA

Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, rushed to the aid of the Russian ex-spy and his daughter who were targeted with a nerve agent. He was hospitalized after aiding them and didn’t leave until three weeks after the attack.
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Police believe they were poisoned at home, and detectives found the highest concentration of novichok on the front door of Mr Skripal’s house.
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Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May spokes with Wiltshire Police’s Chief Constable Kier Pritchard near where the Skripal’s were found. Britain expelled 23 Russian diplomats over the nerve agent poisoning and suspended high-level contacts, including for the World Cup on March 14. Theresa May told parliament that Russia had failed to respond to her demand for an explanation on how a Soviet-designed chemical, Novichok, was used in Salisbury.
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Sergei Skripal days before he was exposed to Novichok, that has left him fighting for life.
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British soldiers were deployed soon after the attack to help a counter-terrorism investigation into the nerve agent attack. One of the places they were asked to help out with was Skripal’s home and it’s surrounding. They were asked to remove a vehicle connected to the agent attack in Salisbury, from a residential street in Gillingham.
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Personnel in protective coveralls and breathing equipment cover an ambulance with a tarpaulin at the Salisbury District Hospital.
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The investigation extended to the grave of Sergei Skripal’s son Alexander in London Road cemetery.
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The Counter Terrorism Policing Network requested assistance from the military to remove a number of vehicles and objects from Salisbury.
EPA

Home Secretary Amber Rudd visited the scene of the nerve agent attack at the Maltings shopping centre on 9 March.
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Yulia Skripal, speaking for the first time, said she felt lucky to have survived the nerve agent attack in Salisbury which left her fighting for life. Ms Skripal said her life had been “turned upside down” by the assassination attempt. But the Russian national added she hoped to return to her homeland one day, despite the Kremlin being blamed for the attack.
Reuters