The Silk Road rally turned out to be a cover for international GRU operations - The Insider, Bellingcat, Der Spiegel, Le Monde

The project of the international automobile rally "Silk Way" serves as a front for the GRU to deploy its infrastructure in the countries of the Middle East. This is stated in the investigation of journalists from The Insider, Bellingcat, Der Spiegel and Le Monde. They also concluded that the Silk Road leadership helped the GRU killers to be present in Europe.

Silk Road is an annual off-road car race that has been held since 2009. At first, its route ran between Kazan and Turkmen Ashgabat, by 2016 between Moscow and Beijing. The project was conceived as a tool for improving relations between Russia and Asian countries. One of the Silk Road's 2021 internal documents states that the project aims to "realize potential soft power and people's democracy within the framework of international cooperation." The geopolitical goals of the project for Russia were also indicated there, which included influence on Saudi Arabia and strengthening the country's position in the region.

The organizers of the rally decided to create a project of "continental scale" out of it, writes The Insider. The top secret report that Bulat Yanborisov, head of the Silk Road, presented to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in 2021, mentioned military goals. In particular, they talked about the fact that the rally could allow Russia to create new military-political alliances, increase its military presence in Central Asia and the East, as well as "arms control" in the region.

Although in the past two years the rally has been held exclusively in Russia, at the end of 2022 it was planned to lead the route from Doha in Qatar through the countries of Central Asia and Turkey and finish it in Syrian Damascus. In fact, the participants of the competition drove along the Astrakhan-Moscow route, a rally between Kazan and Moscow is planned for 2023. The last time the Silk Road route included cities outside of Russia was in 2019, according to information on the official website of the competition.

The authors of the investigation note that in 2022 alone, the head of the project, Yanborisov, called up more than 60 times with the deputy head of the GRU, Vladimir Alekseev. They communicated especially actively shortly before and in the first months after the start of the war in Ukraine. Even before the full-scale invasion, Yanborisov received the Order of Alexander Nevsky from the hands of Alekseev "for merits in strengthening the country's defense capability and for the successful solution of special tasks."

The journalists found out that in addition to Alekseev, the head of the Silk Road, Yanborisov, also communicated with at least 11 other GRU officers. Three of them are officers of military unit 29155, who participated in the poisoning of the Skripals and Emelyan Gebrev with Novichok military poison.

After the start of the war in Ukraine, Yanborisov continued to travel extensively in Europe and Asia. In Paris, he has an apartment in one of the wealthy areas, on Prony Street. Journalists suggest that this particular apartment was used as a safe house for GRU officers. In addition to this housing, Yanborisov also has a luxurious mansion in Bulgaria - not far from there, judging by the details of the conversations, the head of the GRU group, Denis Sergeev (also known as Sergei Fedotov), ​​was located before the poisoning of Emelyan Gebrev.

Yanborisov's assets allow Russian intelligence officers to have a legal pretext for using real estate and money in Europe, writes The Insider.

In a conversation with journalists of the publication, Bulat Yanborisov said that the Silk Way Rally (SWR for short) was originally conceived not only as a sports project, but also as a platform for "people's diplomacy". He also stated that he had no ties with the GRU, and he received an order from General Alekseev for "assistance in delivering medical equipment for the Ministry of Defense to Russia from China to fight the coronavirus."

Sources: The Insider , Silk Road

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