On 14th April 2020, Major General Valery Shaytanov was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Shaytanov was formerly head of the SBU’s special operations department, which is focused on counter-terrorism. He is alleged to have worked for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and has been charged with treason and terrorism. Shaytanov is accused of leaking secret information to Russia, recruiting other Ukrainian officers to work for the FSB and taking part in assassination plots.
According to the SBU, Shaytanov was recruited by Colonel Igor Egorov. It has been revealed that Egorov is a senior officer from FSB’s elite Spetznaz force known as Department V who received a medal for his role in annexing Crimea. Thanks to Bellingcat investigations, we now know that Egorov also went by the nom-de-guerre “Elbrus”, who described himself as an advisor to the LNR leadership. Commander “Elbrus” also arrived in occupied Eastern Ukraine days before the downing of MH17 – it is clear from the phone calls that Elbrus has a decision-making role in Donetsk and Luhansk, so his arrival just days before the tragic events of 17th July certainly leaves questions to be answered.
One of Shaytanov and Egorov’s target was Adam Osmayev. Osmayev was a fighter in the Chechen wars and former commander of the Chechen volunteer battalion on Ukraine’s side in the war in Eastern Ukraine. Osmayev has survived two other assassinations attempts in the pasts; however, his wife, an activist and also a veteran of the war in Eastern Ukraine, was killed on 30th October 2017, just ten kilometers outside Kyiv.
Adam Osmayev was not the only Chechen target of Egorov’s Department V. Bellingcat revealed in February that units from the department were involved in the extrajudicial killing of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. In fact Colonel Egorov traveled back to Moscow on 23rd August 2019 just after the assassination of Khangoshvili.
The SBU published photos of a meet-up between Col. Egorov and the man hired to carry out the assassination in Hamburg, Germany. According to their press statement, Egorov, Shaytanov and the would-be assassin took place in Germany, France and Croatia.
Bellingcat provided a lot of details about the travel patterns of Egorov and it is clear that he was able to travel freely in Europe and beyond. In addition to this, he frequently traveled between Rostov, Simferopol and Krasnodar, three locations of control centers for military operations against Ukraine. The list of countries that Egorov visited is long: Germany, Jordan, Ukraine, Belarus, Croatia, Israel, Switzerland, Singapore, France, UAE, Montenegro. In December 2016, he received a multi-entry Schengen four-year visa. He used Germany for meetings to discuss assassinations, what he was doing in France and Croatia isn’t clear , but we would like to know. He also frequently traveled to Montenegro before the failed coup there in 2016.
Despite the serious nature of the story revealed by Bellingcat and SBU, this story has not reached very far. It is barely discussed outside of Ukraine, online nobody seems interested – we have to ask why.
This is a very complicated story with many twists and turns. It includes an Ukrainian double agent at the heart of the Ukrainian Secret Service. One man, Colonel Egorov of the FSB, appears to be linked to:
-The illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia
-The MH17 tragedy and the war in occupied Eastern Ukraine
-The attempted coup in Montenegro
-One planned assassination in Germany (Osmayev) and possibly the assassination of Khangoshvili
And this is just what we know…
Maybe it doesn’t seem that surprising that Russia is spying on its neighbor in Ukraine, but Major General Shaytanov, if he did what he is accused of, will have passed information to the Russians which weakened his motherland. He will have passed information on what the Ukrainians were planning to do in their war with the Russian aggressor. His actions could have led to his compatriots deaths. The United Nations estimates that up to 13,000 Ukrainians have died in the war in Eastern Ukraine with a quarter of them estimated to be civilians.
Maybe the West doesn’t care about assassinations of Chechens even when these are planned and take place on their own soil. But this story is really very alarming, Russian Special Services operatives appear to have free reign at the moment. We know that Department V is involved in subversive operations including illegal reconnaissance, subversion, kidnappings, freeing hostages, coups d’etat and assassinations of enemies of the state. It is unbelievable to think that people involved in such kinds of things can go wherever they would like! Maybe now it feels like it affects only distant places which Western audiences don’t understand like Chechnya, Montenegro and Ukraine but the reports reveal that Russia sees Europe as a playground for its operations and who knows what countries or citizens might be the target next.
