The Russian FSB has been waging war against Ukraine long before the Great War. Information operations in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, creation of a wide network of agents of influence, cyberattacks, etc.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Slidstvo.info has been able to collect an archive of testimonies from Ukrainian activists, journalists and military personnel about the crimes of the Russian FSB in this war.
According to the victims, the most brutal interrogations and torture in the occupied territories were carried out by Russian FSB officers.
“The interrogation lasted for about six hours, during which I was forced to sign a piece of paper: “I, Baturin Oleg Ihorovich, undertake to cooperate with the federal authorities of the Russian Federation, Baturin O. and signature,” says Oleg Baturin, a journalist from Nova Kakhovka who was held captive by the FSB.
The editorial board of Slidstvo.info received information about the real estate of Russian generals from its sources in military circles. These materials refer to the leadership of the Russian FSB, in particular, the generals of the Russian special service.
This is stated in the investigation by Slidstvo.info.
FORMER HEAD OF THE FSB DEPARTMENT OF THE OCCUPIED CRIMEA
Retired Lieutenant General Viktor Palagin is a former head of the FSB department in the Russian-annexed Crimea. It was under his leadership that massive seizures of Ukrainian activists and journalists took place after the occupation of the peninsula, persecution of Crimean Tatars and the development of occupation institutions in Crimea.
The month after Palagin’s appointment as head of the FSB in Crimea, Russians detained Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and activists Gennadiy Afanasyev and Oleksandr Kolchenko. During Palagin’s tenure, the FSB brutally persecuted, imprisoned, and abducted Crimean Tatars. At that time, activists Timur Shaimardanov and Seiran Zinedinov disappeared.
This was only the beginning of the terror: in the following years, the FSB conducted dozens of searches and mass detentions of Crimean Tatars on the occupied peninsula.
On November 14, 2018, Palagin resigned at his own request and moved to the position of Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Russian energy company FGC United Energy System, which supplies electricity throughout Russia.
According to the information received from the sources of Slidstvo.info, the retired Russian lieutenant general has two two-story houses in the village of Timonino near Moscow, one with an area of about 263.4 m2 and the other with an area of 117.2 m2.
HEAD OF THE FSB COUNTERINTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT
From the first day of the full-scale invasion, FSB officers were in Ukraine, interrogating and abducting Ukrainians. For example, one of the stories told by Slidstvo.Info in September 2022 was about a math teacher from Kyiv region who was kidnapped and taken to Russia because she spoke Ukrainian to Russian special services. The woman was suspected of collaborating with the Ukrainian military.
“On March 25, three soldiers knocked on the gate and came in. A man in black came in, I understood that he was an FSB officer, and about ten people with him… The man was forced to kneel in the corridor. And Vika(the captured math teacher – ed.) was in the kitchen… Then the child came out, dressed, and asked for socks. I took off her jacket, put on a black fur coat, gave her my ugg boots… When she was leaving the house, she hugged me, kissed me and asked me to say goodbye to her father,” Kateryna, the mother of the captured teacher, says through tears.
The highest ranks of the FSB are responsible for this and other crimes against civilians. This includes Colonel-General Nikolai Yuryev, head of the FSB’s counterintelligence department, who has comfortably settled in the Moscow region.
The FSB’s counterintelligence, aka military intelligence, which is now headed by Yuryev, appeared two centuries ago. Russian media reported that at the time, military intelligence was engaged in “police functions in the territories that had recently become part of the empire.”
Obviously, this tradition has continued during the current war. In 2022, it became known that in the occupied territories, the FSB created special groups to search for members of the Ukrainian underground, which included members of the FSB’s counterintelligence department.
“They took me away for anything they didn’t like. Even for making eye contact, they could take away our documents and take us away. We tried not to go out… It was genocide, real genocide,” residents of the newly liberated right bank of the Kherson region told Slidstvo.info in November 2022.
The FSB paid special attention to journalists and activists from the territories occupied at the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
“They looked at albums, photos, and asked: “Who is this, what does he do, where does he study, where is his daughter, where is his husband?” There was not a single corner where they did not rummage. The search was conducted by the military, and the FSB officer talked to the parents,” says Svitlana Zalizetska, a journalist from Melitopol whose father was detained by the FSB.
Apparently, for planning such operations and other crimes against civilians, Yuriev enriched himself quite a bit. As is usually the case in Russian leadership circles, the colonel general lives a wealthy life.
This first became known thanks to his daughter, Alexandra Yuryeva, whose elite real estate in Moscow and a fleet of expensive cars were discovered by journalists.
However, as it turned out, Yuriev’s wealth includes not only his daughter’s elite apartment. According to the data obtained by Slidstvo.info, he has at least ten land plots in the Moscow region registered in his name, his daughter and, probably, his wife Tamara Yuryeva.
The Yuriev family has a lot of land. For example, a 50-acre plot in the Novo-Daryino dacha settlement, which is registered in the name of Tamara Yuryeva.
On Russian classifieds sites, the journalists learned that the average price per hundred square meters in the area is 80 thousand dollars. Accordingly, the Yurievs’ plot could be worth $4 million.
Yuriev’s daughter has a plot of 18 acres in the Polyana gardening society. Today it can be about 40 thousand dollars .
HEAD OF THE 1ST SERVICE OF THE FSB
Yuryev’s department is part of the structure of the FSB’s 1st Service (Counterintelligence), headed by Lieutenant General Vladislav Menshchikov.
From 1983 to 1995, he worked in the state security services, and then was the general director of one of Russia’s largest defense companies, Almaz-Antey Air Defense Concern OJSC. Today, this company is currently manufacturing anti-aircraft missile systems, including Buk, C300, and C400. These weapons are actively used by Russia in its war against Ukraine.
In 2015, Vladimir Putin appointed Menshchikov as the head of the 1st Counterintelligence Service of the FSB.
This service is known for specializing in planning and organizing intelligence, sabotage and terrorist operations on the territory of Ukraine.
Svitlana Zalizetska, a journalist from Melitopol who survived the occupation, says that even before the full-scale invasion began, FSB representatives were in the city and held public discussions with locals.
“Even before the war, in the same building, in the business center of Yevhen Balytsky, our gauleiter, they gathered ‘Yevhen Balytsky’s people,’ gathered house elders and ‘block elders,’ those who worked in the elections. And to such meetings they brought a representative from Crimea, from the FSB. And he told them about his life. That is, they(the Russians – ed.) were preparing,” says Svitlana.
In 2020, SBU officers detained their colleague Valerii Shaitanov on suspicion of high treason, namely, working for the FSB’s 1st Counterintelligence Service.
Among the divisions of this service is the Information Security Center or the 18th FSB Center. Most of the cyberattacks on Ukraine from Russia are his work.
Vladislav Menshikov is the head of this entire structure and at the same time lives his best life in the Moscow region.
According to Slidstvo.info, Menshikov and his family have at least 16 land plots in Moscow region, 7 houses and one apartment .
If you put together all of Menshikov’s real estate, you could get a small town. His estates range in size from 68 to almost 1000 m2. And the land plots range from three to almost 60 acres.
Some of Menshikov’s plots are located nearby and are united into their own cottage complex.
Today, the largest plot of land in Menshikov can cost $2.2 million. The total cost of his cottage complex is almost $6 million .
Meanwhile, Menshchikov’s subordinates, who do not have so much land and real estate, are mocking Ukrainians, beating confessions out of them for things they did not do.
“He grabbed me by the tail, dragged me to the second floor and to the last office. He took me there, handcuffed me to the radiator by the window and sat me on a chair. I stayed there for three days. Every morning they came, interrogated me, the FSB officers… He started beating me, first he hit me with his fist on the head from above, then several times on the face, right and left, several blows to the nose. He said: “If you keep quiet, I’ll come in 10 minutes, I’ll finish you off,” says Oleksandr Gunko, a journalist from Nova Kakhovka who survived the occupation.
HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF COUNTERINTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS
Among Menshchikov’s deputies is Dmitry Minaev. The Ukrainian intelligence service named him the main organizer of the murders of two Ukrainian intelligence officers, Oleksandr Haraberyush and Maksym Shapoval, in 2017.
He heads the Department of Counterintelligence Operations. Minaev also settled in a Moscow suburb. The Russian owns two two-story houses and four plots of land there.
HEAD OF THE 7TH SERVICE OF THE FSB ACTIVITY SUPPORT
The last in this list of Russian generals is the head of the 7th FSB Activity Support Service, Colonel General Mikhail Shekin.
The Seventh Service purchases almost everything for the FSB, from apartments, cars, border boats, firearms, to uniforms and medicines.
Earlier, Russian journalists wrote that Mikhail Shekin’s family owns real estate worth more than two billion rubles: luxury apartments, expensive cars, a mansion, and “several land plots near Moscow.”
“Slidstvo.info received accurate information about these land plots. Shekin owns ten land plots, all in the Odintsovo district of Moscow region, registered to the son and wife of an FSB officer.
The largest plot of land has an area of 36 hectares. Today it can cost about 387 thousand dollars.
All of these Russian generals are in charge of key areas of the FSB’s work and are responsible for crimes committed in Ukraine. Their subordinates are abusing Ukrainians in the occupied territories: searching homes, kidnapping, torturing, raping, and forcing them to cooperate. The very FSB generals who give these horrific orders have a lot of houses and land in elite towns near Moscow. Now we know their names and faces, as well as the exact addresses of their homes.
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