Thread by @bellingcat

The latest from Respekt, @the_ins_ru and Bellingcat, revealing more details into the GRU's operations in Europe, evidencing how there were linked to the conflict in Ukraine bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

We previously identified more team members of the GRU team responsible for the Vrbetice warehouse explosion in Czechia, and that it included the most senior leadership of the unit.
bellingcat.com/news/2021/04/2…

Two open questions remain the subject of speculation by the press: First, whether the sabotage operation in Czechia in 2014 is linked to the poisoning of the arms manufacturer Emilian Gebrev in 2015 bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

Second, what might have been the underlying motivation of the sabotage operation – and of the subsequent attempt on Emilian Gebrev’s life.

Data analyzed by Bellingcat supports the hypothesis that the explosions in Czechia were part of a longer-term GRU operation aimed at disrupting Ukraine’s capabilities to procure munitions during the conflict in Ukraine.

The operation appears to have been initiated shortly after July 2014 when Russian authorities subordinated the disparate Russia-supported militant groups in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine under central control and military supervision of the GRU.

The mission, which appears to have been run by the subversion and sabotage sub-unit of GRU’s Unit 29155, included several contiguous operations among which were the explosions at the Vrbetice depots, the assassination attempt on Emilian Gebrev.

We can also say that with increasing likelihood that includes at least one of the three explosions at munition depots in Bulgaria in early to mid-2015.

This version of events is corroborated by the overlap of the small sabotage team in the Czech and Bulgarian operations; the team members’ contiguous assignments in the two countries; and the links to EMCO in both sets of operations.

Moreover, telephone records analyzed by Bellingcat show that several members of Unit 29155 communicated actively with Russian military officers deployed to the Donbas, as well as with local militant commanders fighting against the central Kyiv government, in 2014 and 2015.

At the same time, an analysis of correspondence between EMCO and the depot operator Imex from 2014 indicates that the target of the GRU sabotage operation may not have been (solely) Gebrev’s munition stock.

The data reviewed by Bellingcat also sheds doubt on the Czech official version of events according to which the GRU unit had planned for the explosion to occur on Bulgarian territory after repatriation of the munition purchased by EMCO.