Translated material
War
One thousand three hundred and fifty seventh day. The FSB claims to have prevented an attempt to hijack a MiG-31 fighter. The investigative group Bellingcat is allegedly involved in it
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Russia
The Federal Security Service announced on the morning of November 11 that Russian special services had uncovered an operation by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and its “British curators”, during which it was planned to hijack the supersonic MiG-31 fighter.
A report released by the FSB Public Relations Center said Ukrainian military intelligence officers tried to recruit Russian pilots by “promising them to pay three million US dollars” for hijacking the fighter jet.
“Subsequently, the special service planned to send a plane with a Kinzhal missile to the area where the largest NATO airbase in south-eastern Europe, located on the territory of Romania in the city of Constanta, is deployed, where it could be shot down by air defense systems,” the FSB website reports.
The Russian intelligence service also published a video: it shows a man wearing a flight helmet covering his face; he is filmed against the background of military aircraft, his voice is deliberately distorted. In the video, he says that in the fall of 2024, a person contacted him via telegram who introduced himself as Bellingcat journalist Sergei Lugovsky and offered to “consult him on military topics” for a fee. To confirm his identity, the man in the video says, Lugovskoy sent him his press card. “I believe that the purpose of his contact with me was Sergei’s desire to compromise me in order to subsequently use this in the interests of intelligence,” he states.
An operational officer of the Russian FSB told TASS that when contacting the pilot, “intelligence used the so-called journalistic organization Bellingcat, controlled by the UK CIS, which had already come to our attention.” The state agency’s interlocutor said that in 2022, the FSB had already accused investigator Hristo Grozev, who was working at Bellingcat at that time, of involvement in the “failed GUR operation to hijack a Su-34 fighter.”
“So, in one of the conversations, Sergei brought up the question of paying me a reward for allegedly transmitting information of a military nature. At the same time, the money had to be transferred to my personal bank card,” says the man in the FSB video, adding that he refused “further communication and development of contact.”
Shortly thereafter, the man in the video says, he received an anonymous email offering to hijack a plane for a million dollars. In the event of the hijacking of a plane with a Kinzhal missile, he claims, the amount would increase to three million. Contacts with him through “various foreign messengers” were maintained by a certain Alexander. Among other things, he says, they sent him a video with a large amount of cash (this footage is included in the FSB video).
According to the man in the video, when he said that he “does not have sufficient skills to land a MiG-31 on his own,” Alexander arranged for him to have a telephone conversation with a Ukrainian Armed Forces pilot, who tried to teach him remotely, telling him “that there is nothing difficult or complicated about it.”
The man in the FSB video also says that it was planned to “neutralize the crew commander in the air” during the GUR operation. “They wanted me to spray the commander’s oxygen mask with some kind of toxic substance or break the glass partition and somehow neutralize it,” he says.
The hijacking was planned during a flight over the Black Sea, he says. “Alexander proposed to approach the airfield in the Odessa region through Romanian airspace over the city of Constanta,” says the person in the FSB video. In addition, according to him, Alexander promised to edit a report for the media, simulating a plane crash and providing it with a reliable cover story.
Later, the FSB reported that “in response to the provocation” of Ukraine, Russian troops on the night of November 10 launched a strike with Kinzhal missiles at the Main Center for Electronic Intelligence of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine in the city of Brovary, Kyiv region, and the Starokonstantinov airfield in the Khmelnytsky region, “where the notorious F-16 [fighters] are stationed.”
The Ukrainian side did not comment on the FSB statement about the MiG-31 hijacking operation. The international investigative group Bellingcat, declared an “undesirable organization” in Russia in 2022, has also not yet issued a statement.
Update. Investigator Hristo Grozev responded with skepticism about the FSB report. “They use an AI-generated face, the speech is unnatural and fake, and it's all completely pointless. Why would “British intelligence” or the GUR use a non-existent journalist from an “undesirable” organization with which no Russian pilot would ever communicate? Why would they show a photo of a dead helicopter pilot as proof of the attractiveness of the offer? All this is so ignorant that, in my opinion, it does not deserve further comment,” said Grozev.
In August 2023, pilot Maxim Kuzminov flew a Russian Mi-8 helicopter across the front line to Ukraine. Kuzminov said in a video published by Ukrainian military intelligence that he himself contacted Ukrainian authorities because he did not want to fight. The pilot claimed that he asked the other crew members to surrender, but they “began to behave a little aggressively” and were killed.
According to The New York Times, Ukrainian authorities gave Kuzminov $500,000 for the helicopter hijacking, and also provided him with a Ukrainian passport under the fictitious name of Igor Shevchenko.
Special forces of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense threatened on federal television that they would find Kuzminov and “punish him to the fullest extent of the law” and he “would not live to see trial.”
On February 13, 2024, Kuzminov was killed in the Spanish city of Villajoyosa in Alicante.
War through the eyes of Meduza readers
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Meduza's readers live in different countries and have different attitudes towards the war. We publish your letters to see this event through your eyes. Our editors try to present all points of view, even if they do not coincide with the editorial position. However, in accordance with the Meduza code, we do not publish messages that contain “hate speech,” justify the murder of civilians, or express direct support for an aggressive war.
Universe (Kogalym). Fear and the unknown, the unknown and fear are now constant emotions. Despite the fact that none of my loved ones were taken away due to mobilization and we live far from the border zone.
Due to the abundance of information, you don’t understand where the truth is and whether it exists at all. The hope that everything will end soon is becoming more and more elusive. And what kind of society will we live in if this ever ends?
It is still impossible to come to my parents, where federal channels work around the clock, but I no longer argue with them. Our child was born in the midst of Covid, it seemed that nothing worse could happen, but life has a way of surprising. I'm scared for her, what kind of world she will grow up and live in, whether there will be anything left of this world if every country wipes the red buttons.
Prices and the overall economic situation also do not add optimism, although I understand that it’s a sin for me to complain at all: we can still go to a restaurant and order food delivery, but some people lose children and husbands there every day. Increasing rumors about a new wave or general mobilization are also terrifying. And pity, endless pity for everyone on both sides of the barricades, for those on the field, for the peaceful ones, for those who gave up everything and left, for those who stayed. How many decades must pass for fraternal peoples to become fraternal again, and is this even possible...
Endless grief and fear, but they have become so permanent that they are already heard in the background, you feel like a monkey who doesn’t want to hear, see, speak anything again.