Probe links Kremlin military spy arm GRU to full support of Russian mercenary group Redut
The Russian organization PMC Redut, which is participating in the war against Ukraine, is not actually a private military company, but was created, financed and controlled by the Russian military intelligence, according to the investigation of Radio Liberty.
Journalists analyzed the activities of this "volunteer formation", which is actually a hidden system of recruiting mercenaries for Russian intelligence.
As part of the investigation, it was possible to identify 100 Redut fighters, study the structure of units, the financial conditions of contracts, as well as what orders were given on the ground and who directly supervised the fighters from Russia's GRU special service.
The connection of the "PMC" with Russian military intelligence is visible in the internal documents of the unit, where the fighters themselves indicate their subordination to the GRU, the investigators write.
The journalists talked to a dozen recruiters who are engaged in recruitment in various divisions of this "PMC". Already at the stage of selection, they were informed that the financing and management of the ogranization is carried out by the GRU.
Information about the involvement of Russian military intelligence was confirmed by fighters of the formation itself in Ukrainian captivity. Four "mercenaries" got there in 2022, and were later convicted of torturing residents of Kharkiv Oblast.
In an interview with journalists, they said that they were going to serve in the 16th Brigade of the GRU of the Russian Federation. In Kharkiv Oblast, orders to search for Ukrainian Anti-Terrorist Operation participants and pro-Ukrainian citizens were given by a military man with the call sign "Amur", whom the Redut militants themselves called "a handler from the GRU".
In the investigation, the journalists mention the names of Colonel Aleksey Kondratyev and Deputy Head of the GRU, Lieutenant General Vladimir Alekseyev. The former is the handler of the so-called "volunteer corps" under the leadership of the GRU, which also includes Redut fighters, and the second is the main initiator of the creation of this so-called "PMC".
Neither Kondratyev, nor Alekseyev, nor the Russian Ministry of Defense and the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov answered the journalists' questions.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, Moscow has actively engaged the so-called "volunteer formations" and "PMCs" in its war against Ukraine.
In July 2022, one of the mercenaries of the PMC Redut confirmed that they had "started a war" against Ukraine, carrying out a raid in Stanytsia Luhanska a day before the start of the full-scale invasion.