A Russian family of spies coordinated a series of bombings and poisonings in Europe. The couple received Czech passports under the guise of political emigrants and even purchased a villa for GRU assassins.
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The Insider published an investigation about Nikolai and Elena Shaposhnikov, who played an important role in Russian sabotage.
The couple’s story in the Czech Republic began with the fact that they falsified their data to obtain citizenship. For example, Nikolai hid his service in Afghanistan, and Elena lied that she surrendered her Ukrainian passport (yes, she is from Kiev).
In the 2000s, Shaposhnikov began working for the arms trading company Imex (he was looking for clients). As part of this work, he learned information about weapons agreements – and his wife passed this data on to the head of unit 29115 of the GRU, General Averyanov.
If supplies harmed Russia, sabotage was carried out. For example, this is how an ammunition train was blown up in the Czech Republic in 2014 to disrupt supplies to Ukraine and Syria. The couple were able to organize access for spies to the location. On April 29, the Czech Republic confirmed that Russian intelligence services were behind this. The poisoning of the Bulgarian arms dealer Emelyan Gebrev also did not happen without the help of the Shaposhnikovs.
The couple had a gigantic villa in Greece, where members of the same unit 29 155 GRU stayed. A number of visits there coincided with missions of Russian special services in the region.
Czech law enforcement officers became interested in the spouses, but the Shaposhnikovs blamed everything on “political persecution.” Nikolai began drinking in anticipation of his arrest, and died in February. Elena is now free in Greece. The publication writes that her passport has numbers reserved for GRU officers.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.