Authorities in the United States and several European countries believe that Russian military intelligence ordered the Russian Imperial Movement – a Russian ultra-right-wing group – to send the letter bombs that were sent in November against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and other prominent targets, according to U.S. sources quoted by The New York Times.
The Russian Imperial Movement has two paramilitary training centers in St. Petersburg and contacts with ultra-right organizations in several European countries, including Spain. It is also included in the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
Several prominent members of the group have been to Spain and investigations have revealed their relationship with Spanish far-right organizations, according to ‘Times’ sources.
Specifically, the order to send the letter bombs would come from the Main Directorate of the High General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU), which would thus seek to demonstrate its capacity to perpetrate this type of actions in European countries and also to test the capacity of these satellite groups in the face of a possible escalation of the conflict.
So far there are no indications that Moscow is preparing a campaign of attacks and sabotage in European capitals in retaliation for its support to Ukraine, but this could change if Russia does not achieve its objectives in Ukraine, highlights ‘The New York Times’.
«It looks like it’s a warning shot,» said Nathan Sales, who was the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator under Donald Trump, when the Russian Imperial Movement was listed as a terrorist group. «Russia is sending a signal to warn that it could use its terrorist affiliates to strike in the West’s backyard,» he has added.
The GRU is considered one of the most aggressive Russian intelligence agencies and would have been involved in actions such as the attempt to interfere in the 2016 US elections or the downing of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine in 2014, according to US sources.
One of the GRU units, Unit 29155, would be in charge of trying to destabilize several European countries with coup attempts and assassinations, according to U.S. and European sources. This unit counts among its ranks war veterans and its operation is so secret that its existence is unknown even to a large part of the GRU.
In the case of the Spanish letter bombs, those responsible would belong to the 161st Specialized Training Center based in eastern Moscow, where Unit 29155 is also based, according to Washington.
The United States has been informed that the Spanish investigation has already identified several suspects involved in these attacks. The U.S. and British secret services are collaborating in this investigation, according to ‘Times’ sources.
RUSSIAN IMPERIAL MOVEMENT The Russian Imperial Movement is a racist, white supremacist, anti-Semitic, tsarist monarchist, ultra-nationalist, Russian Orthodox religious organization, according to the description of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.
It aspires to the restoration of the tsarist monarchy in Russia and has links to various neo-Nazi and supremacist groups in the United States and other European countries.
«MIR has provided paramilitary training to white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups in Europe and actively works to unite these groups in a common front against what they consider their enemies,» the U.S. warned when it listed it as a terrorist organization.
As leaders it cited Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, who founded the group in 2002 in St. Petersburg; Denis Valiullovich Gariyev, leader of its armed wing, the Russian Imperial Legion; and Nikolai Nikolayevich Trushchalov, responsible for organizing activities abroad.
Washington links the MIR to two Swedes who carried out a series of bombings in 2016 in Gothenburg, Sweden, targeting two refugee premises and a coffee shop. The suspects participated in a training circuit of the Russian group.
LETTERS BOMB Last November 24, a letter with explosive material addressed to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, which had been sent by ordinary postal mail, was detected. The services of the Security Department of the Presidency of the Government detected the letter while sifting and filtering the correspondence. Five other letters similar in their characteristics and content to those received by the Embassy of Ukraine and the Embassy of the United States in Madrid, by the company Instalaza in Zaragoza, by the European Union Satellite Center located at the Torrejón Air Base and by the Ministry of Defense. A security guard of the Ukrainian Embassy was injured by the explosion of one of the devices.
On January 3, the judge of the Audiencia Nacional investigating the sending of this series of explosive letters agreed to open a new line of investigation in the case to carry out a series of technological investigations.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
