At the start of the Ukraine War, Russia mainly relied on large-scale shelling. Rockets fell all over Ukraine, hitting all major cities. After a few weeks, the aerial attacks disappeared – until two weeks ago.
After the explosion on the Crimean Bridge in early October, Russian President Vladimir Putin (70) retaliated with renewed air strikes. Rockets and kamikaze drones caused deaths and injuries in the country’s major cities.
An international investigation team has now found out who is behind these attacks. Journalists from the Bellingcat platform, the “Mirror” and the Russian online medium “The Insider” spent months investigating who exactly could be held responsible for the missile attacks.
Little is known about the group
According to this, a group of several dozen people would be behind the rocket attacks. This officially works for the “Computing Center of the General Staff”. The department is said to specialize in missile systems, but nothing is known about the group publicly.
The employees are IT specialists, some also have a background as a computer game programmer. The group is said to have taken over the programming of the missile trajectories. Each missile was programmed individually and each impact location was defined separately.
According to the investigation, Colonel Igor Bagnyuk heads the department. Bagnjuk was born in the Latvian capital Riga in the early 1980s. In 2004 he graduated from an academy specializing in Russian missiles and the IT systems behind them. The investigation also found that Bagnyuk was in the country during the missile strikes in Syria.
The journalists also had access to data from Bagnyuk’s mobile phone. Significantly more use was made of this in the week before the last rocket attacks than in the months before. On the evening of October 9, the day before the attacks on several major cities, he called his engineers 11 times. In the weeks before that, there was virtually no radio communication.
Back at the office an hour before the attack
The location data of Bagnyuks Cell phones also showed that the colonel drove from his home outside Moscow to his office shortly after 5 p.m. on the eve of the first wave of attacks — on a Sunday.
Bellingcat said three different types of missiles were used in the attacks. These are high-precision missiles of the Kalibr, Iskander and KH-101 type.
Within the department of Bagnyuk, several subgroups work. Each of these groups specializes in programming a specific type of missile. The records show that Bagnyuk called the leaders of these subgroups in the afternoon – probably to clarify the final details of the attack.
Sunday evening at 9:15 pm Bagnyuk spoke one last time with his superior, General Robert Baranov. Then he went home – but not for long. The next morning, Bagnyuk returned to his office. According to the location records, he would have arrived at the headquarters in Moscow at 5.30 am.
An hour later, Russia fired the first missiles.