It is called the “special tasks department”. Special, the missions of this spy department are indeed this: attempted murder abroad, logistical sabotage or attacks on incendiary devices … in an investigation, THE Wall Street Journal (WSJ) revealed The history of this secret unit of Russian information which would lead, in the shadows, the charge against the West.
Established in 2023 “in response to Western support for Ukraine”, it is since “the aquarium”, the Russian military intelligence headquarters, that this department operates. According to European and American sources of the daily life, “it includes veterans of some of the most daring clandestine operations in Russia in recent years”. Having since become particularly powerful in spying services, this department, whose Russian acronym is SSD, now directs part of the FSB and would have completely absorbed unit 29155, identified by European information as responsible for poisoning in poisoning 2018 of agent Double Sergei Skripal.
The SSD would focus on three main tasks: “Perform sabotage missions abroad, infiltrate Western businesses and universities, and recruit and train foreign agents”, such as Ukraine or Serbia, lists the WSJ.
Specialty: attacks on incendiary devices
This unit would thus be at the origin of a series of attacks against Western countries over the past two years. Among them, details the newspaper, “the Attempted murder of the Director General of a German weapons manufacturer “and principal provider of artillery ammunition in Ukraine, the director general of Rheinmetall Armin Papperger. But also a succession of attacks following an operating mode favored by the SSD: the attack on The incendiary bomb.
Last May, the Ukrainian security service said it has foiled a plot from Russia to set fire to several supermarkets and a coffee, while another fire was thwarted in a supermarket in Warsaw (Poland). Two months later, incendiary machines similar to those found on these places sparked fires in transit centers in Leipzig, Germany, and Birmingham, England. One of them, placed on an airplane and triggered while it was always on the ground, could, according to German security, have done catastrophic damage if the plane had not been retained by a delay in correspondence .
According to the security experts interviewed by the American media, these interference was part of a program aimed at testing incendiary devices before installing them on planes for the United States. A threat so high “that the national security advisor at the time, Jake Sullivan, and the CIA chief, William Burnscalled Russian leaders in August and asked them to stop the attack, “the time reported the New York Times.
An attempted bomb foiled on French soil
Colonel General Andrey Averyanov, decorated with the highest Russian distinction by Vladimir Putin for his involvement in the occupation and annexation of Crimea, is at the head of this cell. He is seconded by General Ivan Kasianenko, of Kazakh origin, who had resumed in 2023 the supervision of Wagner’s paramilitary operations in Europe after the murder of its founder, Evgueni Prigojine. According to European intelligence sources, the words of which are reported by the WSJ, Kasianenko also recently participated in the facilitation of the transfer of skills and technology from Russia to Iran.
Last December, the European Union had sanctioned the department without appointing it for orchestrated “coups d’etat, assassinations, attacks and cyberattacks” on European territory and outside. According to the EU, in May 2024, SSD agents set fire to a factory in Berlin belonging to Diehl, a company that provides weapons systems to Ukraine. While in June, the French authorities arrested a double Ukrainian-Russian national after the explosion of a makeshift bomb in his hotel room. He planned, according to the authorities, to explode a DIY store.
In the United States, which are concerned that these assaults do not reach their soil, the State Department still offers a bonus of $ 10 million for information concerning five members of the unit responsible for cyberattacks in Ukraine. After a peak of activities this summer, the SSD attacks have nevertheless calmed down in recent months, notes the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps, the newspaper advances, to “create a diplomatic space so that Moscow can negotiate with the new American administration” by Donald Trump.