Andrei Averianov, the shadow Russian general in the sights of Western services

Vladimir Putin’s regime will no doubt refrain from lifting the veil on the exact circumstances of the explosion, on August 23, in full flight, of the jet which cost the life of the head of the Wagner private militia, Evgueni Prigojine, and of six of his collaborators, near Moscow. Secrecy is part of the climate of terror imposed by the Russian head of state to consolidate his power, including among his entourage. Nevertheless, since the fall of the plane, the main Western secret services have been talking and trying to find out more about the modus operandi.

According to the information transmitted by the Americans to their European allies, the explosion was not accidental. A finding made, in large part, thanks to technical intelligence for lack of access to the parts of the device. Also according to the fruit of cooperation between Western agencies, agents from Russian military intelligence (GRU) could have played a role in the preparation of the operation targeting Prigojine. Among them appeared the name of Andrei Averianov, known to these same secret services for having led unit 29 155 of the GRU, the bridgehead of Russian interference in Europe for almost ten years.

The world could not obtain details on the level of intervention of Andrei Averianov. But it has already been proven that his position, today, within Putin’s power, has been repaid for precious services rendered to the regime and is no longer the one we still knew him in 2020. At the end of July, in Saint Petersburg, during a meeting with a Malian delegation, during a Russia-Africa summit, he appeared alongside Russian ministers and heads of conglomerates surrounding Vladimir Putin. When it was his turn to introduce himself, we see him, in front of the cameras, let go of a laconic “Averyanov Andrei, security”.

Often bloody actions

In reality, his profile is quite different. Now a general, Andrei Averianov graduated in 1988 from the Military Academy in Tashkent, in what was then the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan. He has spent much of his career with the GRU, which according to British intelligence has established itself within the Russian secret service community with the hardening of the country’s foreign policy. The power has made GRU units the clandestine spearhead of this strategy of tension which has continued to grow since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Responsible, during the Cold War, for training communist guerrillas in Asia, Africa or Central America, unit 29 155 was reconverted, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, into action service for the Russian army, notably in Chechnya in the 1990s. In 2012, it was one of the three GRU units rewarded by the Russian Ministry of Defense for “special achievements in the course of their military mission”modest terms that designate often bloody underground actions.

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