Russian intelligence spokesman Andrey Averyanov is believed to be potentially involved in the death of the leader of the private military company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane crash in the Tver region of Russia.
This is reported by foreign publications, citing sources in British and Ukrainian intelligence. At the same time, the Kremlin denies the information that they ordered the assassination of Prigozhin on August 23.
Now for the British intelligence services that are investigating the disaster, questions remain open about what exactly happened and who is behind it.
Earlier, security and defense analyst Professor Michael Clarke stated that Averyanov is being considered as a replacement for Prigozhin for Wagner's operations in Africa.
In his opinion, this move will give Russian dictator Vladimir Putin more power and control over the actions of Wagner PMC mercenaries in Africa, which he definitely does not want to stop.
Averyanov heads GRU unit 29155 — Russian military intelligence, which conducts operations on the territory of other countries on the orders of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The unit has been linked to several assassinations, notably of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.
Averyanov, meanwhile, has been linked to the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in 2018.
< p>The same unit appears in the investigation of the bombing of an ammunition depot in the Czech Vrbetica in 2014, the attempted murder of a Bulgarian arms dealer in 2015, the destabilization campaign in Moldova, the failed coup attempt in Montenegro in 2016.
Recently, the graves of Wagner militants were destroyed in the cemetery in Russia. One of the Wagnerites said that this was supposedly blasphemy, since “PMC mercenaries died for Russia, and all their graves were razed to the ground”.
