(THREAD) GRU GOT BUSTED IN PRAGUE:

HOW A JOINT COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE OPERATION CAUGHT GRU RED-HANDED:

New details of Russian military intelligence (GRU) operation in the Czech Republic are out thanks to @okundra & @spurny2 (Czech weekly magazine @RESPEKT_CZ):

- (Russian) Assistant Military Attache to Prague Dmitrij Bondarenko cultivated a Czech arms leader. Since 2018, Bondarenko developed a clandestine arms deal with him.

- In January 2019, Bondarenko was replaced by another GRU officer Jevgrenij Sergejevic Borisenko in Prague.

- Borisenko kept meeting the Czech arms dealer on monthly basis, discussing “the order (or specific weapons and ammo)”.

- Czech police tracked and arrested a gang of Czech weapons dealers in late May 2020, including this Czech arms dealer - the contact of GRU.

- This Czech arms dealer was turned and together with Czech police and counter-intelligence, he played a sting operation on GRU officer Borisenko.

- Borisenko was detained at Prague outskirts in late June 2020 after trying to buy embargoed special weapons.

- The embargoed special weapons GRU tried to buy in Prague:

Sniper rifle ammo, ammo for anti-armour weapons, sub-sonic ammo (for weapons with silencers), pistols without identification.

- Czech police held this GRU officer ("a diplomat") for two hours and searched him.

- The Russian Embassy in Prague flew this GRU officer to Moscow within one day of the arrest. Russia expelled one Czech diplomat in retribution.

FULL STORY IN CZECH: https://www.respekt.cz/tydenik/2021/3/zasilka-pro-plukovnika

- Borisenko was succeeded at Russian Embassy in Prague by Viktor Viktorovic Budyak, connected to GRU Unit 29155 (assassinations & coups). Budyak served in Afghanistan in 2014-5, one of the most senior GRU officers to serve in Prague for a long time.

Here we go.