Best known ‘secret’ agents The operatives responsible

Aleksei

Morenets Born in 1977 in a small town on the Arctic coast of Murmansk, Morenets studied in the information technologies department of the AF Mozhaisky Military Space Academy in St Petersburg, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Proekt investigative centre reported.

In Moscow, Morenets was registered in 2009 at a defence ministry complex that includes the headquarters of GRU unit 26165, which US investigators believe hacked the Democratic party during the US election.

Yevgeny Serebriakov

Born in Kursk, south of Moscow, Serebriakov served in GRU unit 26165 starting in 2004 and was registered to that address, the Dossier Centre investigative project reported.

He previously travelled to Malaysia to participate in a cyber attack on the police and prosecutor’s office after the downing of MH17, based on information found in his laptop, say Dutch authorities. Overwhelming evidence suggests a missile from Russia took down the plane over eastern Ukraine in 2014 but Moscow denies this.

Oleg Sotnikov

A 46-year-old native of Vladimir Lenin’s hometown of Ulyanovsk, Sotnikov reportedly studied at the Moscow Automobile and Road Construction State Technical University. The rest of his background remains murky.

Alexey Minin

Minin, a sturdy, bearded 46-year-old, has had a long career in the GRU. He graduated from a military technical institute in his home region of Perm in central Russia and went on to the Moscow military diplomatic academy, more commonly known as the “conservatory,” where the GRU trains its intelligence agents.

Graduates of the conservatory often go on to work undercover in Aeroflot and other Russian state organisations abroad here Minin learned how to recruit and run agents.