Putin appointed a member of the Scientific Council under the Council of Employee of the GRU, whom the United States and Estonia were accused of spreading fakes about Covid

Short investigation "Medusa"

Vladimir Putin on May 11 significantly updated the composition of the Scientific Council at the Security Council. The Security Council himself, which is guided by Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, gradually became an analogue of the Soviet Politburo in recent years. He needs the Scientific Council for “scientific, methodological and expert-analytical support of activities” , assistance in the development of a strategy for national security and strategic planning documents, determining priorities, criteria and indicators. One of the newcomers in the Scientific Council was a certain A. G. Starunsky, deputy commander of the military unit 55111. Medusa found that the American and Estonian intelligence services were suspected of involvement in disinformation on the Internet that the GRU is engaged in.

What kind of military unit 55111?

There is almost no public information about this Russian military unit, unlike many others. Perhaps because it was formed recently (until 2012, another, already disbanded military unit near Irkutsk) wore such a number).

The secret part

Unlike other military units of the GRU-for example, the famous 29155, whose employees were suspected of involvement in explosions in the Czech warehouse of the weapon of Vrbetitsa in October 2014 and the poisoning of the Bulgarian businessman Emelyan Gubrev in 2015,-military unit 55111 did not leave any “paper track”. Typically, each military unit is registered as a legal entity in the tax authorities for conducting economic activities, and its commander is indicated in the documents as the head of the organization. So, for example, journalists managed to confirm that the commander of military unit 29155 was Major General Alexander Averyanov, who is indicated in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities as the head of the federal state institution (FCU) “Military Part 29155”.

But military unit 551111, the deputy commander of which, according to the text of the presidential decree, is A. G. Starunsky, does not appear in any records of registration of legal entities or other documents. Perhaps this part can hide its economic activity because it falls under the government of the government of November 27, 2017, which allows the Ministry of Defense, the FSB and the SVR to make its purchases on closed trading floors, without disclosing them publicly.

In 2018 alone, the military unit 55111 began to be mentioned in the materials of scientific and practical conferences. For example, in April 2018, the conference “Actual issues of the development of weapons, military and special equipment of the missile and missile defense troops, and the space forces of the Aerospace Forces” was held at the Bauman MSTU. Among its participants, according to the press release, there were representatives including military unit 55111.

Another conference on the topic “Problems and the main directions of the development of radio electronics and the educational process of training specialists of specialist radio engineering systems” with the participation of military unit 55111 employees in November 2019 in the Cherepovets Higher Military Engineering School of Radio Electronics (VIVIUERE).

In the materials from the conference in Vuyure, through a comma with a military unit 55111, several military units are also mentioned, the belonging of which is already known to the GRU. This is 45807, located at 76B Khoroshevskoye Shosse, in Moscow-there is a headquarters of GRU , as well as Khimkinskaya 74455 and 36360 in Zagoryansky near Moscow Schelkovo (it is the 4th scientific company of GRU ).

Who is Alexander Old Yarensky?

Alexander Gennadievich Starunsky was repeatedly mentioned in the American media in connection with the information operations of the GRU. He and the new member of the Scientific Council under the Council of People's Commissars, the deputy commander of the military unit 55111 A. G. Starunsky, is the same person, confirmed the interlocutor close to the FSB. According to him, Starunsky is responsible for the "external operations of Russia."

In July 2020, The Associated Press and The New York Times, citing sources in the US government, said that Starunsky was an GRU officer and was engaged in misinformation campaigns - in particular, distributed fakes about coronavirus for the English -language audience. The name of the Old Yarensky American media is associated with the site inforos.ru, allegedly under the control of GRU.

Inforos.ru website indicates the address of the editorial office of the Information Agency Infosoros - 13 Krzhizhanovsky Street, building 2, in Moscow. Three organizations are located at the same address, which Alexander Gennadievich Starunsky includes co-owners in the Spark-Interfax database. This is an autonomous non -profit organization (ANO) “Information Civilization of the XXI Century”, ANO “Institute of Russian Abroad” and the Association “Business Club of the SCO”, which has been owned by 20% of IA “Infos” since April 2019.

Also, Starunsky, a member of the Board of Directors of the Infosza, since 2005, which is indicated on the Runet -id website, where the participants and speakers of the Russian Internet forum (RIF) are recorded.

Astra+, as a scientific consultant of which Starunsky registered in the reef, belonged to Denis Tyurin (he closed it in 2019) and was registered at the familiar address-Krzhizhanovsky, 13, Building 2. Tyurin was the main owner of the Infosza, as can be seen from the data of Spark-Interfax: at first its share was 30%, then it was a share I bought it in full, but in 2019 transferred all the shares to the agency of the Association of the SCO Business Club (as well as two non -public people), which he established with Starun.

On April 15, 2021, Denis Tyurin got into the American sanctions list as an employee of the GRU along with the company Infosoro. There is no Old Yarensky on this list.

What is known about Old

The biographical certificates of Alexander Gennadievich Starunsky were given in several of his interviews .

• In 1998, he received the degree of candidate of psychological sciences, protecting the thesis “Psychological impact as an object of acmeological research” (about the “Information War”).
• In the same 1998, he held the position of assistant commander of the collective peacekeeping forces of the CIS in Tajikistan.
• In 2000-2001, he was a senior officer of the communication and interaction group of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation at the headquarters of the multinational division ("North") in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• And in 2002–2003 - the deputy commander of the united group of troops (forces) in the North Caucasus for Information Policy .
• In 2006 and 2013, he was mentioned as a teacher of the Military University of the Ministry of Defense in the rank of colonel of the reserve.

What was the old woman, Tyurin and "Infos" accused of?

For the first time, the name of Alexander Staryansky in connection with the military unit of GRU 54777 and the InForos.ru website was mentioned in the article by The New York Times on July 28, 2020. The anonymous sources of the publication in the American special services called Denis Tyurin and Alexander Starunsky “Russians with the GRU ties”, whose tasks were to disseminate misinformation on the instructions of the security forces through the sites Inforos.ru, Infobrics.org and Oneworld.press.

About the connection of military unit 54777 GRU (aka 72nd separate center of special services) with the Infosos agency wrote in December 2018 and The Washington Post. This center, the article says, also works through fake organizations that receive state funding for activities in the field of public diplomacy. As such organizations, The Washington Post calls the site inforos.ru and what is indicated in the article as Institute of the Russian Diaspora. Most likely, this is an autonomous non-profit organization (ANO) "Institute of Russian Abroad", founded in 2005 Denis Tyurin, Alexander Starunsky and Sergey Kamovsky.

Where did they get the money

According to the state procurement portal, from 2011 to 2019, the ANO “Institute of Russian Abroad”-which is also registered at 13 Krzhizhanovsky, building 2, in Moscow, like other Tyurin and Old Earth organizations, received contracts for more than 26 million rubles for “performing work on the substantial filling and promoting on the Internet of Interactive Internet Resources (portal), focused on compatriots living abroad. ”

In the weekend data of the Russian Century site, the creators are indicated by the “Institute of Russian Abroad” and IA “Infosos”.

Another company, related to Denis Tyurin and Alexander Staransky, received even more budget funds at the public procurement, - IA Infosero LLC (not to confuse the IA Infos LLC associated with it), for which the commodity sign of the publication and the Inforos.ru domain are registered. From 2010 to 2019, she received from various public services and departments - from the Foreign Ministry to the Department of National Policy and Interregional Relations of the Moscow Government - more than 87 million rubles.

Tyurin and Starunsky, as Nyt journalists wrote, are engaged in the so -called laundering of information, by analogy with money laundering. According to the publication, the misinformation created under the control of GRU is first placed on these extremely little -known sites, and then it is reprinted by other, more popular Western resources of the pro -Russian orientation of the Globalresearch.ca type. Such sites, writes The New York Times with reference to their sources in American intelligence, serve as “amplifiers” of GRU misinformation, but their connection with the Russian special services has not been proven.

Similar data are also given in the report of the Estonian foreign intelligence service for 2020: there is the former commander of military unit 54777, Tyurin-its officer, and the part itself is associated with the extensive network of organizations and sites that distribute the bumps from the unified headquarters at the address of Moscow, the street Krzhizhanovsky, 13, building 2.

In addition, writes Nyt, from May to July 2020, sites related to the breast published about 150 articles on coronavirus pandemia - for example, that the virus can be biological weapons.

Alexander Staransky himself did not respond to calls and SMS of the journalists "Medusa". The press service of the President of Russia “Medusa” confirmed that A. G. Starunsky, deputy commander of the military unit 55111, is indeed included in the Scientific Council under the Council of People's Commissars. But to the question of whether A. G. Starunsky is from the presidential decree and Alexander Gennadievich Starunsky from the publication of the American media with the same person, they answered: “Other assumptions given in the request were based on messages, including the media, including the media, which are, including the media, which are hypothetical. We do not comment on this kind of information. ”

Update. Answering the question of the journalist of “Echo of Moscow” during a briefing on May 18, the presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained what the Scientific Council under the Council of Councils is engaged in: this is “a“ advisory body that is involved as necessary to receive an expert assessment of certain processes in both domestic and foreign policy. ” Regarding the accusations against Alexander Old Yarensky by Estonia and the United States in the spread of fake information, Peskov replied: “There are many different claims to many. They are not always wealthy, they are not based on any specific information. ” Peskov said about the connections of Starunsky with the GRU that he did not have such information.

And the "Medusa" recently had a podcast about the Council

Special Corps of Medusa Andrei Pertsev and publicist Konstantin Gaaze tell how, apparently, the unofficial “party of security forces” in the Russian government is arranged.

Authors: Denis Dmitriev and Alexey Kovalev with the participation of Lilia Yapparova

Editor: Tatyana Lysova