Journalist Sokolova Publishes Intelligence Report on Wagner Mercenaries, Displeasing Presidential Office

Sokolova said the documents are "valuable for society."

Journalist Yanina Sokolova has released documents that confirm the preparation in Ukraine of the special operation "Avenue" to detain Wagner PMC mercenaries, and that its final stage was postponed on the decision of the highest military and political leadership. The Office of the President did not like the documents she released. 

Intelligence Report

Yanina Sokolova said that the documents were "planted on a flash drive at her office a few days ago." She and her colleagues believe they are original, which is why they published them. 

The journalist believes that such documents were not available either to the parliamentary Temporary Investigative Commission or to the investigators at Bellingcat, who previously published their investigation into the "Wagner" mercenaries. 

One of the documents is a memo from the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Vasily Burba, to Defense Minister Andriy Taran, dated June 22, 2020 and approved on July 1, 2020. 

The second document is a report on the special operation "Avenue," approved by Burba and signed by the head of the special reserve of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Yuriy Semenyuk, on August 4, 2020. 

The report states that materials on 138 people were handed over to the Security Service, and a group of 48 mercenaries was formed to be sent along the Moscow – Minsk – Istanbul route. Later, tickets for a Turkish Airlines flight from Minsk to Istanbul were purchased through a travel agency: for 33 people on July 25 and for 14 people on July 27. 

The report says: "However, after the decision of the highest military and political leadership of Ukraine to postpone the departure date, airline tickets were booked and purchased for 30.07.2020 for 33 people and for 01.08.2020 for 14 people (second group), along with medical insurance." The document does not say who exactly made the decision. 

Despite the operation's failure and the fact that Belarus ultimately handed the "Wagner" mercenaries over to Russia, the intelligence directorate decided to "consider the special operation 'Avenue' carried out," and its expenses of 719,382 hryvnias and 34 kopecks were deemed "justified." Sokolova said she is ready to provide the documents to law enforcement. 

Presidential Office Reaction

Adviser to the head of the Presidential Office Mykhailo Podolyak responded to the intelligence report on the "Wagner" mercenaries published by Sokolova. 

Mykhailo Podolyak
adviser to the head of the Presidential Office

Now, finally, one can preliminarily put all the dots on the "i" in the big and scandalous story with the Wagner mercenaries. I will speak bluntly. In my view, it is absolutely incorrect, especially in a country at war, when citizens of that country "dump" into the public domain the methods of their own intelligence service, reveal algorithms, methods and even completely non-public goals of intelligence officers' work.

According to him, this is a very serious and painful blow "to our capabilities as a state, when specific facts about the documentation of participants in the war against Ukraine, which has been carried out since 2014, were made public." 

Podolyak noted that Ukraine's adversary now knows all the key nuances of how intelligence officers and special services managed to collect evidence of the guilt of Russians. 

Sokolova's Response

The journalist responded to Podolyak's accusation that the documents she published "dealt a serious blow to Ukraine." She noted that her information only confirms the Bellingcat investigation and is also valuable for society. 

Yanina Sokolova
journalist

The Presidential Office is in agony. The documents we published are not new to them. But the documents of the internal process of the special operation are proof. Not speculation, but direct evidence. In fact, this is what now irritates the entire presidential team, which first said through Yermak that it was all fictional from start to finish, and the president, after many months of silence, said he had trusted Lukashenko, so "oh, he deceived us, it didn't work out." The documents I published are a demonstration of lies and unprofessionalism. The reaction to the publication is an obvious agony.

She noted that all call signs in the documents, which are new to the public space, have been blacked out for security reasons. Sokolova said: "I am a journalist. My job is to expose and show people the truth." 

The journalist stressed that the documents she published are valuable both for society and for future investigation.