The Russia connectionPicturesque Alpine Region Served as “Rear Base” for Russia’s GRU Agents
The French intelligence services are leading an international hunt for Russian spies after what was described as a “rear base” of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency was discovered in southeastern France. GRU agents used the region of the Haute-Savoie as a “stopover,” during which they would be given the final briefings before moving on to their missions in various European countries.
The French intelligence services are leading an international hunt for Russian spies after what was described as a “rear base” of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency was discovered in southeastern France, Le Monde reported on Thursday.
French investigators have identified fifteen Russian agents — all members of GRU’s elite Unit 29155 — who made visits to the Alpine region of Haute-Savoie between 2014 and 2018. Among the agents identified were Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the two GRU agents who, on Vladimir Putin’s orders, used the powerful chemical novichok to poison the former GRU colonel and British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, in 2018.
French, British, Swiss, and U.S. intelligence agencies launched a coordinated effort to clamp down on Russia’s overseas operations in the wake of the Skripal poisoning. It was during this joint counterintelligence campaign that the intelligence services of the four countries discovered that several other GRU agents also stayed in Haute-Savoie — including GRU operatives who were behind the 2015 novichok poisoning in Bulgaria of the arms dealer Emilian Gebrev, who ran afoul of Putin, and agents who tried, but failed, to stage a pro-Russian coup in Montenegro in 2016.
According to Le Monde, the GRU agents would fly to a larger French city such as Lyon or Nice and then travel to Haute-Savoie, a region bordering Switzerland and Italy. Some of them “came many times, others once or twice,” Le Monde reports.
The agents would stay in hotels in various picturesque towns and villages in the region, which is popular among tourists. The agents appeared to have used they stay as a “stopover,” during which they would be given the final briefings before moving on to their missions.
Experts say that Unit 29155 specializes in assassinations and sabotage.
“The most likely hypothesis is to consider it a rear base for all the clandestine operations carried out by Unit 29155 in Europe,” a senior French intelligence official told Le Monde.
The newspaper notes that the investigation did not recover any materials — such as maps, blueprints, or discarded chemical containers — or weapons used by the by the Russian agents. The investigators have also not identified any locals who collaborated with the agents. The counterintelligence investigation, however, was able to confirm the agents’ presence by identifying their hotels and motels in which they were staing, as well as the restaurants and stores that they visited.
In 2018, Moldova sentenced a former lawmaker for spying for Russia. The court found that the politician had been recruited by the GRU to deliver “information of national interest.”
Le Mondereported that two Russian nationals, Eduard Shishmakov and Vladimir Popov, were recently sentenced in absentia for their role in the conspiracy that led to the failed coup in Montenegro in 2016. Both Shishmakov and Popov are on the list of agents who visited Haute-Savoie.
The German magazine Der Spiegel, the U.K. investigative outfit Bellingcat, and Russian website The Insider have fund evidence connecting the GRU to the attempt to poison the Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev in 2015. Medical samples taken from Gebrev showed traces of the nerve agent novichok — the toxin used against the Skripals. The investigative reports in the three outlets reported that seven GRU operatives traveled to Bulgaria to carry out the poisoning. Le Monde publishes the names of four of the seven agents.
An investigative report in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo quoted Spanish officials who said that members of Unit 29155 have been involved, over the last two years, in supporting the Catalan independence movement.
On Wednesday, Germany expelled two Russian diplomats after a Russian agent killed a Georgian national of Chechen descent in a Berlin park. The Man who was killed commanded Chechen guerrillas against Russia in the Second Chechen War (1999-2009). The German intelligence services say that the killing was carried out by Russian intelligence after requests by the Russian puppet regime now in control in Chechnya.
